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Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman

F >> Francis Parkman >> Montcalm and Wolfe




[Footnote 755: This statement is made by the Chevalier Johnstone, and,
with some variation, by the author of the valuable _Journal tenu a
l'Armee que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm._ Bigot says that,
after the battle, he was told by British officers that Wolfe meant to
risk only an advance party of two hundred men, and to reimbark if they
were repulsed.]

As Wolfe had informed Pitt, his army was greatly weakened. Since the end
of June his loss in killed and wounded was more than eight hundred and
fifty, including two colonels, two majors, nineteen captains, and
thirty-four subalterns; and to these were to be added a greater number
disabled by disease.

The squadron of Admiral Holmes above Quebec had now increased to
twenty-two vessels, great and small. One of the last that went up was a
diminutive schooner, armed with a new swivels, and jocosely named the
"Terror of France." She sailed by the town in broad daylight, the
French, incensed at her impudence, blazing at her from all their
batteries; but she passed unharmed, anchored by the Admiral's ship, and
saluted him triumphantly with her swivels.

Wolfe's first move towards executing his plan was the critical one of
evacuating the camp at Montmorenci. This was accomplished on the third
of September. Montcalm sent a strong force to fall on the rear of the
retiring English. Monckton saw the movement from Point Levi, embarked
two battalions in the boats of the fleet, and made a feint of landing at
Beauport. Montcalm recalled his troops to repulse the threatened attack;
and the English withdrew from Montmorenci unmolested, some to the Point
of Orleans, others to Point Levi. On the night of the fourth a fleet of
flatboats passed above the town with the baggage and stores. On the
fifth, Murray, with four battalions, marched up to the River Etechemin,
and forded it under a hot fire from the French batteries at Sillery.
Monckton and Townshend followed with three more battalions, and the
united force, of about thirty-six hundred men, was embarked on board the
ships of Holmes, where Wolfe joined them on the same evening.

These movements of the English filled the French commanders with
mingled perplexity, anxiety, and hope. A deserter told them that Admiral
Saunders was impatient to be gone. Vaudreuil grew confident. "The
breaking up of the camp at Montmorenci," he says, "and the abandonment
of the intrenchments there, the reimbarkation on board the vessels above
Quebec of the troops who had encamped on the south bank, the movements
of these vessels, the removal of the heaviest pieces of artillery from
the batteries of Point Levi,--these and the lateness of the season all
combined to announce the speedy departure of the fleet, several vessels
of which had even sailed down the river already. The prisoners and the
deserters who daily came in told us that this was the common report in
their army."[756] He wrote to Bourlamaque on the first of September:
"Everything proves that the grand design of the English has failed."

[Footnote 756: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct. 1759._]

Yet he was ceaselessly watchful. So was Montcalm; and he, too, on the
night of the second, snatched a moment to write to Bourlamaque from his
headquarters in the stone house, by the river of Beauport: "The night is
dark; it rains; our troops are in their tents, with clothes on, ready
for an alarm; I in my boots; my horses saddled. In fact, this is my
usual way. I wish you were here; for I cannot be everywhere, though I
multiply myself, and have not taken off my clothes since the
twenty-third of June." On the eleventh of September he wrote his last
letter to Bourlamaque, and probably the last that his pen ever traced.
"I am overwhelmed with work, and should often lose temper, like you, if
I did not remember that I am paid by Europe for not losing it. Nothing
new since my last. I give the enemy another month, or something less, to
stay here." The more sanguine Vaudreuil would hardly give them a week.

Meanwhile, no precaution was spared. The force under Bougainville above
Quebec was raised to three thousand men.[757] He was ordered to watch
the shore as far as Jacques-Cartier, and follow with his main body every
movement of Holmes's squadron. There was little fear for the heights
near the town; they were thought inaccessible.[758] Even Montcalm
believed them safe, and had expressed himself to that effect some time
before. "We need not suppose," he wrote to Vaudreuil, "that the enemy
have wings;" and again, speaking of the very place where Wolfe
afterwards landed, "I swear to you that a hundred men posted there would
stop their whole army."[759] He was right. A hundred watchful and
determined men could have held the position long enough for
reinforcements to come up.

[Footnote 757: _Journal du Siege_ (Bibliotheque de Hartwell). _Journal
tenu a l'Armee, etc. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]

[Footnote 758: Pontbriand, _Jugement impartial._]

[Footnote 759: _Montcalm a Vaudreuil, 27 Juillet. Ibid., 29 Juillet,
1759_.] The hundred men were there. Captain de Vergor, of the colony
troops, commanded them, and reinforcements were within his call; for the
battalion of Guienne had been ordered to encamp close at hand on the
Plains of Abraham.[760] Vergor's post, called Anse du Foulon, was a mile
and a half from Quebec. A little beyond it, by the brink of the cliffs,
was another post, called Samos, held by seventy men with four cannon;
and, beyond this again, the heights of Sillery were guarded by a hundred
and thirty men, also with cannon.[761] These were outposts of
Bougainville, whose headquarters were at Cap-Rouge, six miles above
Sillery, and whose troops were in continual movement along the
intervening shore. Thus all was vigilance; for while the French were
strong in the hope of speedy delivery, they felt that there was no
safety till the tents of the invader had vanished from their shores and
his ships from their river. "What we knew," says one of them, "of the
character of M. Wolfe, that impetuous, bold, and intrepid warrior,
prepared us for a last attack before he left us."

[Footnote 760: Foligny, _Journal memoratif. Journal tenu a l'Armee_,
etc.]

[Footnote 761: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct._ 1759.]

Wolfe had been very ill on the evening of the fourth. The troops knew
it, and their spirits sank; but, after a night of torment, he grew
better, and was soon among them again, rekindling their ardor, and
imparting a cheer that he could not share. For himself he had no pity;
but when he heard of the illness of two officers in one of the ships, he
sent them a message of warm sympathy, advised them to return to Point
Levi, and offered them his own barge and an escort. They thanked him,
but replied that, come what might, they would see the enterprise to an
end. Another officer remarked in his hearing that one of the invalids
had a very delicate constitution. "Don't tell me of constitution," said
Wolfe; "he has good spirit, and good spirit will carry a man through
everything."[762] An immense moral force bore up his own frail body and
forced it to its work.

[Footnote 762: Knox, II. 61, 65.]

Major Robert Stobo, who, five years before, had been given as a hostage
to the French at the capture of Fort Necessity, arrived about this time
in a vessel from Halifax. He had long been a prisoner at Quebec, not
always in close custody, and had used his opportunities to acquaint
himself with the neighborhood. In the spring of this year he and an
officer of rangers named Stevens had made their escape with
extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to give his
countrymen the benefit of his local knowledge.[763] His biographer says
that it was he who directed Wolfe in the choice of a landing-place.[764]
Be this as it may, Wolfe in person examined the river and the shores as
far as Pointe-aux-Trembles; till at length, landing on the south side a
little above Quebec, and looking across the water with a telescope, he
descried a path that ran with a long slope up the face of the woody
precipice, and saw at the top a cluster of tents. They were those of
Vergor's guard at the Anse du Foulon, now called Wolfe's Cove. As he
could see but ten or twelve of them, he thought that the guard could not
be numerous, and might be overpowered. His hope would have been stronger
if he had known that Vergor had once been tried for misconduct and
cowardice in the surrender of Beausejour, and saved from merited
disgrace by the friendship of Bigot and the protection of
Vaudreuil.[765]

[Footnote 763: Letters in _Boston Post Boy,_ No. 97, and _Boston Evening
Post,_ No. 1,258.]

[Footnote 764: _Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo._ Curious, but often
inexact.]

[Footnote 765: See _supra_, p. 186.]

The morning of the seventh was fair and warm, and the vessels of Holmes,
their crowded decks gay with scarlet uniforms, sailed up the river to
Cap-Rouge. A lively scene awaited them; for here were the headquarters
of Bougainville, and here lay his principal force, while the rest
watched the banks above and below. The cove into which the little river
runs was guarded by floating batteries; the surrounding shore was
defended by breastworks; and a large body of regulars, militia, and
mounted Canadians in blue uniforms moved to and fro, with restless
activity, on the hills behind. When the vessels came to anchor, the
horsemen dismounted and formed in line with the infantry; then, with
loud shouts, the whole rushed down the heights to man their works at the
shore. That true Briton, Captain Knox, looked on with a critical eye
from the gangway of his ship, and wrote that night in his Diary that
they had made a ridiculous noise. "How different!" he exclaims, "how
nobly awful and expressive of true valor is the customary silence of the
British troops!"

In the afternoon the ships opened fire, while the troops entered the
boats and rowed up and down as if looking for a landing-place. It was
but a feint of Wolfe to deceive Bougainville as to his real design. A
heavy easterly rain set in on the next morning, and lasted two days
without respite. All operations were suspended, and the men suffered
greatly in the crowded transports. Half of them were therefore landed on
the south shore, where they made their quarters in the village of St.
Nicholas, refreshed themselves, and dried their wet clothing, knapsacks,
and blankets.

For several successive days the squadron of Holmes was allowed to drift
up the river with the flood tide and down with the ebb, thus passing and
repassing incessantly between the neighborhood of Quebec on one hand,
and a point high above Cap-Rouge on the other; while Bougainville,
perplexed, and always expecting an attack, followed the ships to and fro
along the shore, by day and by night, till his men were exhausted with
ceaseless forced marches.[766]

[Footnote 766: Joannes, Major de Quebec, _Memoire sur la Campagne de_
1759.]

At last the time for action came. On Wednesday, the twelfth, the troops
at St. Nicholas were embarked again, and all were told to hold
themselves in readiness. Wolfe, from the flagship "Sutherland," issued
his last general orders. "The enemy's force is now divided, great
scarcity of provisions in their camp, and universal discontent among the
Canadians. Our troops below are in readiness to join us; all the light
artillery and tools are embarked at the Point of Levi; and the troops
will land where the French seem least to expect it. The first body that
gets on shore is to march directly to the enemy and drive them from any
little post they may occupy; the officers must be careful that the
succeeding bodies do not by any mistake fire on those who go before
them. The battalions must form on the upper ground with expedition, and
be ready to charge whatever presents itself. When the artillery and
troops are landed, a corps will be left to secure the landing-place,
while the rest march on and endeavor to bring the Canadians and French
to a battle. The officers and men will remember what their country
expects from them, and what a determined body of soldiers inured to war
is capable of doing against five weak French battalions mingled with a
disorderly peasantry."

The spirit of the army answered to that of its chief. The troops loved
and admired their general, trusted their officers, and were ready for
any attempt. "Nay, how could it be otherwise," quaintly asks honest
Sergeant John Johnson, of the fifty-eighth regiment, "being at the heels
of gentlemen whose whole thirst, equal with their general, was for
glory? We had seen them tried, and always found them sterling. We knew
that they would stand by us to the last extremity."

Wolfe had thirty-six hundred men and officers with him on board the
vessels of Holmes; and he now sent orders to Colonel Burton at Point
Levi to bring to his aid all who could be spared from that place and the
Point of Orleans. They were to march along the south bank, after
nightfall, and wait further orders at a designated spot convenient for
embarkation. Their number was about twelve hundred, so that the entire
forced destined for the enterprise was at the utmost forty-eight
hundred.[767] With these, Wolfe meant to climb the heights of Abraham in
the teeth of an enemy who, though much reduced, were still twice as
numerous as their assailants.[768]

[Footnote 767: See Note, end of chapter.]

[Footnote 768: Including Bougainville's command. An escaped prisoner
told Wolfe, a few days before, that Montcalm still had fourteen thousand
men. _Journal of an Expedition on the River St. Lawrence._ This meant
only those in the town and the camps of Beauport. "I don't believe their
whole army amounts to that number," wrote Wolfe to Colonel Burton, on
the tenth. He knew, however, that if Montcalm could bring all his troops
together, the French would outnumber him more than two to one.]

Admiral Saunders lay with the main fleet in the Basin of Quebec. This
excellent officer, whatever may have been his views as to the necessity
of a speedy departure, aided Wolfe to the last with unfailing energy and
zeal. It was agreed between them that while the General made the real
attack, the Admiral should engage Montcalm's attention by a pretended
one. As night approached, the fleet ranged itself along the Beauport
shore; the boats were lowered and filled with sailors, marines, and the
few troops that had been left behind; while ship signalled to ship,
cannon flashed and thundered, and shot ploughed the beach, as if to
clear a way for assailants to land. In the gloom of the evening the
effect was imposing. Montcalm, who thought that the movements of the
English above the town were only a feint, that their main force was
still below it, and that their real attack would be made there, was
completely deceived, and massed his troops in front of Beauport to repel
the expected landing. But while in the fleet of Saunders all was uproar
and ostentatious menace, the danger was ten miles away, where the
squadron of Holmes lay tranquil and silent at its anchorage off
Cap-Rouge.

It was less tranquil than it seemed. All on board knew that a blow would
be struck that night, though only a few high officers knew where.
Colonel Howe, of the light infantry, called for volunteers to lead the
unknown and desperate venture, promising, in the words of one of them,
"that if any of us survived we might depend on being recommended to the
General."[769] As many as were wanted--twenty-four in all--soon came
forward. Thirty large bateaux and some boats belonging to the squadron
lay moored alongside the vessels; and late in the evening the troops
were ordered into them, the twenty-four volunteers taking their place in
the foremost. They held in all about seventeen hundred men. The rest
remained on board.

[Footnote 769: _Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege
of Quebec_. The writer, a soldier in the light infantry, says he was one
of the first eight who came forward. See _Notes and Queries_, XX. 370.]


Bougainville could discern the movement, and misjudged it, thinking that
he himself was to be attacked. The tide was still flowing; and, the
better to deceive him, the vessels and boats were allowed to drift
upward with it for a little distance, as if to land above Cap-Rouge.

The day had been fortunate for Wolfe. Two deserters came from the camp
of Bougainville with intelligence that, at ebb tide on the next night,
he was to send down a convoy of provisions to Montcalm. The necessities
of the camp at Beauport, and the difficulties of transportation by land,
had before compelled the French to resort to this perilous means of
conveying supplies; and their boats, drifting in darkness under the
shadows of the northern shore, had commonly passed in safety. Wolfe saw
at once that, if his own boats went down in advance of the convoy, he
could turn the intelligence of the deserters to good account.

He was still on board the "Sutherland." Every preparation was made, and
every order given; it only remained to wait the turning of the tide.
Seated with him in the cabin was the commander of the sloop-of-war
"Porcupine," his former school-fellow, John Jervis, afterwards Earl St.
Vincent. Wolfe told him that he expected to die in the battle of the
next day; and taking from his bosom a miniature of Miss Lowther, his
betrothed, he gave it to him with a request that he would return it to
her if the presentiment should prove true.[770]

[Footnote 770: Tucker, _Life of Earl St. Vincent_, I. 19. (London,
1844.)]

Towards two o'clock the tide began to ebb, and a fresh wind blew down
the river. Two lanterns were raised into the maintop shrouds of the
"Sutherland." It was the appointed signal; the boats cast off and fell
down with the current, those of the light infantry leading the way. The
vessels with the rest of the troops had orders to follow a little later.

To look for a moment at the chances on which this bold adventure hung.
First, the deserters told Wolfe that provision-boats were ordered to go
down to Quebec that night; secondly, Bougainville countermanded them;
thirdly, the sentries posted along the heights were told of the order,
but not of the countermand;[771] fourthly, Vergor at the Anse du Foulon
had permitted most of his men, chiefly Canadians from Lorette, to go
home for a time and work at their harvesting, on condition, it is said,
that they should afterwards work in a neighboring field of his own;[772]
fifthly, he kept careless watch, and went quietly to bed; sixthly, the
battalion of Guienne, ordered to take post on the Plains of Abraham,
had, for reasons unexplained, remained encamped by the St. Charles;[773]
and lastly, when Bougainville saw Holmes's vessels drift down the
stream, he did not tax his weary troops to follow them, thinking that
they would return as usual with the flood tide.[774] But for these
conspiring circumstances New France might have lived a little longer,
and the fruitless heroism of Wolfe would have passed, with countless
other heroisms, into oblivion.

[Footnote 771: _Journal tenu a l'Armee_, etc.]

[Footnote 772: _Memoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760.]

[Footnote 773: Foligny, _Journal memoratif. Journal a l'Armee_, etc.]

[Footnote 774: Johnstone, _Dialogue. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5
Oct._1759.]

For full two hours the procession of boats, borne on the current,
steered silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible, but the
night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The General was in one of the
foremost boats, and near him was a young midshipman, John Robison,
afterwards professor of natural philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh. He used to tell in his later life how Wolfe, with a low
voice, repeated Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ to the officers
about him. Probably it was to relieve the intense strain of his
thoughts. Among the rest was the verse which his own fate was soon to
illustrate,--


"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
P/

"Gentlemen," he said, as his recital ended, "I would rather have written
those lines than take Quebec." None were there to tell him that the hero
is greater than the poet.

As they neared their destination, the tide bore them in towards the
shore, and the mighty wall of rock and forest towered in darkness on
their left. The dead stillness was suddenly broken by the sharp _Qui
vive!_ of a French sentry, invisible in the thick gloom. _France!_
answered a Highland officer of Fraser's regiment from one of the boats
of the light infantry. He had served in Holland and spoke French
fluently.

_A quel regiment?_

_De la Reine_, replied the Highlander. He knew that a part of that corps
was with Bougainville. The sentry, expecting the convoy of provisions,
was satisfied, and did not ask for the password.

Soon after, the foremost boats were passing the heights of Samos, when
another sentry challenged them, and they could see him through the
darkness running down to the edge of the water, within range of a
pistol-shot. In answer to his questions, the same officer replied, in
French: "Provision-boats. Don't make a noise; the English will hear
us."[775] In fact, the sloop-of-war "Hunter" was anchored in the stream
not far off. This time, again, the sentry let them pass. In a few
moments they rounded the headland above the Anse du Foulon. There was no
sentry there. The strong current swept the boats of the light infantry a
little below the intended landing-place.[776] They disembarked on a
narrow strand at the foot of heights as steep as a hill covered with
trees can be. The twenty-four volunteers led the way, climbing with what
silence they might, closely followed by a much larger body. When they
reached the top they saw in the dim light a cluster of tents at a short
distance, and immediately made a dash at them. Vergor leaped from bed
and tried to run off, but was shot in the heel and captured. His men,
taken by surprise, made little resistance. One or two were caught, the
rest fled.

[Footnote 775: See a note of Smollett, _History of England_, V. 56 (ed.
1805). Sergeant Johnson, Vaudreuil, Foligny, and the _Journal of
Particular Transactions_ give similar accounts.]

[Footnote 776: _Saunders to Pitt_, 20 Sept. _Journal of Sergeant
Johnson_. Compare Knox, II. 67.]

The main body of troops waited in their boats by the edge of the strand.
The heights near by were cleft by a great ravine choked with forest
trees; and in its depths ran a little brook called Ruisseau St.-Denis,
which, swollen by the late rains, fell plashing in the stillness over a
rock. Other than this no sound could reach the strained ear of Wolfe but
the gurgle of the tide and the cautious climbing of his advance-parties
as they mounted the steeps at some little distance from where he sat
listening. At length from the top came a sound of musket-shots, followed
by loud huzzas, and he knew that his men were masters of the position.
The word was given; the troops leaped from the boats and scaled the
heights, some here, some there, clutching at trees and bushes, their
muskets slung at their backs. Tradition still points out the place,
near the mouth of the ravine, where the foremost reached the top. Wolfe
said to an officer near him: "You can try it, but I don't think you'll
get up." He himself, however, found strength to drag himself up with the
rest. The narrow slanting path on the face of the heights had been made
impassable by trenches and abattis; but all obstructions were soon
cleared away, and then the ascent was easy. In the gray of the morning
the long file of red-coated soldiers moved quickly upward, and formed in
order on the plateau above.

Before many of them had reached the top, cannon were heard close on the
left. It was the battery at Samos firing on the boats in the rear and
the vessels descending from Cap-Rouge. A party was sent to silence it;
this was soon effected, and the more distant battery at Sillery was next
attacked and taken. As fast as the boats were emptied they returned for
the troops left on board the vessels and for those waiting on the
southern shore under Colonel Burton.

The day broke in clouds and threatening rain. Wolfe's battalions were
drawn up along the crest of the heights. No enemy was in sight, though a
body of Canadians had sallied from the town and moved along the strand
towards the landing-place, whence they were quickly driven back. He had
achieved the most critical part of his enterprise; yet the success that
he coveted placed him in imminent danger. On one side was the garrison
of Quebec and the army of Beauport, and Bougainville was on the other.
Wolfe's alternative was victory or ruin; for if he should be overwhelmed
by a combined attack, retreat would be hopeless. His feelings no man can
know; but it would be safe to say that hesitation or doubt had no part
in them.

He went to reconnoitre the ground, and soon came to the Plains of
Abraham, so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot known as Maitre Abraham,
who had owned a piece of land here in the early times of the colony. The
Plains were a tract of grass, tolerably level in most parts, patched
here and there with cornfields, studded with clumps of bushes, and
forming a part of the high plateau at the eastern end of which Quebec
stood. On the south it was bounded by the declivities along the St.
Lawrence; on the north, by those along the St. Charles, or rather along
the meadows through which that lazy stream crawled like a writhing
snake. At the place that Wolfe chose for his battle-field the plateau
was less than a mile wide.

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