by Dan Snow
Wolfe’s relations with Monckton were battered at the first sniff of serious action with the enemy. They would plunge still further the next day when the French sent their gunboats across the St Lawrence to harass Monckton’s force and lend some support to the Native Americans and the Canadians who still lurked around the fringes of his camp. Malcolm Fraser records how ‘the French sent some floating batteries from the other side of the river to play on us’. Monckton appears to have believed that it was an amphibious force of French troops about to land and Fraser and his men ‘were ordered to stand to their arms’. They lined up two deep on the beach preparing to unleash volleys of musketry into the French soldiers but none came. Instead, the floating batteries simply sat there and fired at the British. ‘They cannonaded us for about half an hour.’ Infantrymen hated being on the receiving end of artillery more than anything else. Twenty-four-pound cannonballs tore down groups of men and there was nothing they could do about it except wait for an order from an officer to lie down or withdraw. Fraser’s regiment had ‘four…killed and eight wounded’ while ‘one Sergeant of the 15th Regiment and eight of the colour’s company were knocked down with one ball, behind the colours, and all wounded, two, I believe, mortally’.76
Sergeant Thompson of Fraser’s regiment mentions the incident too, and confirms the grizzly death of the sergeant from the 15th. He criticizes Monckton openly for making the men line up and present themselves for destruction. It was particularly foolish he says since ‘there was a ridge of rocks where we could have been formed under shelter from the effect of the enemy’s shot’. Unpleasant though it was for the men it could have been a lot worse according to Thompson, ‘if they had only the sense to have fired canister at us’. Canister was named after the metal canister in which was packed scores of smaller balls. The canister was fired out of the cannon and disintegrated sending out a cloud of balls. It was as if the cannon had been turned into a giant shotgun. Canister was devastating at close range. Thompson writes that ‘they would have mowed us down like grass for our brave general had paraded us in the best manner possible for that purpose’.77
Wolfe was losing faith in his second in command. In his official journal he records that he was ‘very surprised’ to see the men exposed to the fire of the ‘contemptible boats’.78 His ‘Family Journal’ is scathing. It relates how Monckton lined up his entire brigade on the beach, ripe targets for the French cannon and says that ‘fourteen soldiers were killed’. Apparently ‘it was a matter of conversation in the army, what could be his reason for exposing the soldiers in that manner, ‘twas said that it could not be from an apprehension that the enemy would land to attack his brigade as there were not above eight or ten men in each of the floating batteries’. Several pages later, unfortunately at the bottom of a damaged one, the author passes a libellous judgement on Monckton, saying that he has a ‘dull capacity, and may be properly called fat headed, timid and utterly unqualified’. The journal claims that ‘a month of his command would be sufficient to ruin that excellent…’ and here the words become sadly indistinguishable but no doubt refer to the units under Monckton’s command. If, as seems likely, these words reflect the feelings of Wolfe, then the expedition’s high command suffered from as great a schism as their French enemy across the basin of Quebec.79
Wolfe’s anger was no doubt compounded by what he regarded as the failure of his navy. Montresor tells us that Wolfe had attempted to cross from the Île d’Orléans to the south shore to observe the fighting himself. But he had been forced to turn back because his boat was attacked by the ‘floating battery’ which was an ‘oblong stage with 4 embrasures and a great flag’. This was presumably part of the flotilla of boats that was bombarding Monckton’s men. As Wolfe’s boat retreated, the French, pleased with their little victory, ‘gave several cheers’. However, one of the British frigates came to Wolfe’s rescue and made the French gunboats retreat ‘with great precipitation’.80 The disappearance of the floating batteries was also a blessed relief for Monckton’s men. Knox praised the ‘good conduct of our naval friends’.81 But, of course, Wolfe blamed the navy for having let the French craft get close to the south bank at all. On 30 June his ‘Family Journal’ records that ‘none of our men of war’ had yet ‘ventured into the basin of Quebec (though some were bold enough to peep into it)’.82 He and his close staff clearly regarded the naval officers as nothing short of cowards.
The next week was spent fortifying, consolidating, entrenching, and planning. Of primary importance was the securing of the two sites at the tip of the Île d’Orléans and Point Lévis. Wolfe’s Adjutant General, Isaac Barré, wrote huge numbers of notes to the brigadiers and subordinate commanders transmitting Wolfe’s orders. Barré is another example of the workings of patronage. Like Carleton, the Quartermaster General, Barré was a personal friend of Wolfe’s. He had been born to French Huguenot parents in Dublin thirty-two years before. Although prodded towards the law, he chose the army instead. The theatre had also beckoned. Horace Walpole reports that ‘in his younger days he had acted plays with so much applause that it was said [David] Garrick had offered him a thousand pounds a year to come upon the stage’.83 Barré spoke with the composure and eloquence of an actor. He had served with Wolfe on two previous expeditions. In 1758 he had been Wolfe’s Brigade Major, a staff officer who helped run the brigade and transmit Wolfe’s orders. In 1759 despite his lowly rank of Captain and his tender age Barré was given the vital job of Adjutant General doing much the same thing but this time for the whole army. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ describes Barré, who was an intimate member of the ‘Family’ of staff officers, as ‘a worthy good man, with a great share of understanding and humour—brave, but still better qualified for the cabinet than the field—and very proper as an adjutant general’.84
Barré wrote to Monckton to encourage him in his work: ‘the general has ordered me to acquaint you, that you immediately fortify your camp with all possible despatch and precaution, by constructing redoubts in open places, and making abatis in such as are woody’. Redoubts were small strongpoints enclosed by a mound of earth to provide cover from enemy muskets and light guns while an abatis is a vicious natural form of barbed wire which is still occasionally used by modern armies. They are made from felled trees with sharpened branches. In keeping with Wolfe’s habit of assuming that his subordinates were halfwits the letter explicitly states that ‘you should fortify your flanks in the strongest manner’, advice that Monckton, a seasoned campaigner, would have possibly found insulting. Of some real use, though, was Wolfe’s dispatch of some marines, ‘who you may employ as Pioneers’.85
Wolfe shuttled between the points of Île d’Orléans and Lévis regularly. He was pleased by the range from Lévis to Quebec. The ‘weak’ Lower Town would be an ‘easy bombardment’. However, he was still concerned by the performance of Monckton. On his first visit to Point Lévis, Wolfe was ‘amazed at the ignorance in the construction of the Redoubts’. He was never one to hide his disapproval and now he immediately ‘directed some new works’.86 His journal does hint at other reasons for his prickly mood. Not only was he directing his first major operation against a much stronger enemy than he had expected but he was doing so a good month behind schedule. His health was also a nagging problem. His journal on 2 July notes, ‘bladder painful. A good deal racked.’ His solution was to ignore it; that evening he ‘studied plans’.87
Monckton’s men felled trees, hacked at the ground, and started dragging artillery up from the shore. They did so in full view of the town. One French journal reports that ‘with the aid of telescopes’ the author and other Quebecers watched in horror as ‘at least 5000 men and a great quantity of artillery had been landed there’. There was no question what all the work was trying to achieve, ‘it was apparently the intention of the enemy to erect batteries along the heights opposite the town’.88 The town’s batteries fired off round after round to try to interrupt or possibly even to halt the proceedings. Despite the odd ball ploughing
into working parties, the French could not bring the construction to a halt. After a few minutes the British soldiers would pick up their tools and resume their work. A few losses to the French cannon were borne with stoicism. These men had served at Louisbourg the year before and long range, random death was an inevitable feature of sieges. A French source was, unsurprisingly, frustrated; ‘some shell and shot were fired at these workmen, who appeared to suffer, but did not abandon their occupation’.89 By the end of the week on 8 July Wolfe reports in his journal that the batteries were ‘in some forwardness’ even though there was a ‘warm fire of the enemy upon the workmen’.90
On the Île d’Orléans Townshend’s brigade was ordered to follow Carleton and the grenadiers to the tip of the island. Montresor says that they ‘Marched from their first encampment on the island to the Point, the following regiments—Bragg’s, [28th] Lascelles’, [47th] Anstruther’s, [58th] commanded by Brigadier Townshend with the camp equipage and four days of provision each man being provided with either spade or pickaxe.’ Again a screen of light infantrymen and rangers watched the van and the rear as they marched. As always the regimental quartermasters and the ‘camp colourmen’ pushed ahead with the foremost troops. Their job was to arrive at the destination a few hours before the main body of the troops and mark out, with the camp colours, where the regiments were to pitch their tents. Yet again the light troops found themselves in action. Only a mile into the march the rear of the column was ‘fired on by a party of Indians who discharged 6 shot and wounded 3 men’. Major Scott led seven of his rangers ‘into the woods after the enemy’. Montresor records that the column halted for an hour and an officer led some regular infantry into the woods to support the rangers. The rest of the men must have waited in the shade, or poked about on the verges for wild fruit and vegetables to augment their dinner. Occasionally the sharp crack of a musket shot alerted them to the deadly skirmishing that simmered among the trees.91
The men arrived at the tip of the Île d’Orléans and started constructing a strong camp. Wolfe’s engineer Mackellar records that it was ‘fortified for a place of arms and an hospital…here the general, for the present, fixed his Headquarters’.92 Artillery was landed in the boats to protect the new camp but also to try to bar French gunboats from entering the north channel between the Île d’Orléans and the Beauport shore. To help man the artillery Wolfe ordered that ‘a sergeant and 15 men from each regiment in camp are to parade at magazine, to receive orders from an artillery officer and remain with that corps’.93 The Royal Artillery provided only the specialist officers and men, while the hard, unskilled work was done by infantrymen. This was especially true as more naval guns were brought into service on shore. There were far too many to be manned by the artillerymen and sailors were kept on land to operate them.
Brigadier Murray brought the rest of the troops to the tip of the Île dOrléans the following day. The army was now in two camps, one on the tip of the Île d’Orléans and the other on Point Lévis. In the words of Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ both were ‘strongly fortified, [with] hospitals and magazines established at each’.94 Having secured his bases and brought ashore a huge amount of supplies, Wolfe could apply himself to the tricky problem of getting across to the north shore of the St Lawrence and bringing Montcalm to battle. Clearly his original plan of romping ashore at Beauport, crossing the St Charles, and laying siege to Quebec was not such an easy prospect as it had been from the panelled splendour of Whitehall or the swaying admiral’s cabin on the Neptune during the Atlantic crossing. Especially not now that talks with Saunders revealed that there was a wide area of shallows, the ‘Beauport Bank’, which would stop the large ships getting close to the shore to provide gunfire support to the landing troops. The massive firepower of the ships was one of Wolfe’s trump cards yet, as he recorded in his journal, the ‘admiral was of opinion that none of the ships could be the least use in an attempt on the Beauport side’.95 Instead, all their thoughts turned to another option, one that Wolfe had laid out in a letter from Louisbourg. He had always regarded an attack below the town as the most practicable solution to getting ashore on the north bank, ‘unless,’ he wrote, ‘we can steal a detachment up the river St Lawrence, and land them three, four, five miles, or more, above the town, and get time to entrench so strongly that they won’t care to attack’.96 Wolfe, Saunders, and the senior officers knew that when attacking it was always best to go where the enemy was not. Montcalm’s army was ready for them downriver of Quebec; the north shore above the town was unprotected. Pushing above the town was an attractive option but to do so the ships carrying the men would have to brave the narrows, with its firewall of French artillery, and swarms of gunboats.
Wolfe decided that these were less threatening than the defences of Beauport and his journal states that ‘our notions agreeing to get ashore if possible above the Town we determined to attempt it. Troops and ships prepared accordingly.’97 Having taken this momentous decision, Murray was sent to reconnoitre the north shore of the St Lawrence by walking along the south bank upriver of Point Lévis towards the Etchemin River. Mackellar records that ‘some rafts for ferrying the troops across were ordered to be made’.98 Meanwhile Monckton was to push ahead with the batteries on Point Lévis, in order to begin ‘a warm bombardment’ on Quebec, and Townshend prepared his brigade for a feint. Wolfe himself was to land on the north shore of the St Lawrence but downstream of Montcalm, beyond the virtually impassable Montmorency falls. This, according to Wolfe’s journal, would ‘draw the enemy’s attention that way and favour the projected attempt’ above the town.99
It was left to Saunders to ensure that all these operations were transported, fed, supplied, communicated with, and protected at the same time. As the army commanders schemed, a very real battle was going on for control of the basin of Quebec. Sadly, it is one for which the sources are thin. We get only snapshots of the action: canoes and boats ambushing each other in the dawn or twilight, the frustration of the frigates as they felt their way into the shallows to follow French gunboats, the perverse winds of the St Lawrence threatening all the mariners with a sudden squall that could drive them onto the shore. Each night the guard boats stayed afloat waiting for more fireships or incursions by Canadians and Native Americans in their silent canoes. The ships’ logs contain watchwords which edgy sailors demanded of shadowy boats or at the sound of a churning paddle and the drips of water from a hovering oar. The watchwords were always patriotic, an attempt to give heart to the shivering guards, wrapped in darkness. On 6 July it was ‘Boscawen’ one of Britain’s foremost fighting admirals, the following day it was ‘Pitt’. Later that summer ‘Marlborough’ was used, the name of Britain’s greatest general who had destroyed the imperial ambitions of Louis XIV, the Sun King.100
During the day the French would use the currents and light conditions which they knew so well to dart out and attack any vulnerable British ships, boats, or infantry detachments on the shoreline. Wolfe’s frustration deepened; he noted in his journal that ‘the Enemy [are] permitted to insult us with their paltry boats carrying cannon in their prows’.101 The small boats presented a huge problem for the large ships. Operating in confined waters with fickle wind they simply could not get close enough to the French to bring their guns to bear. The French chose the time and place of the attacks, only venturing out if conditions gave them an advantage over the sail-powered vessels. Ramezay wrote on one occasion in early July that ‘despite the fact that the English maintained not to have suffered from our fire, the frigates have retreated a little closer to the shore of Ile d’Orléans’.102 The gunboats had to be taken on by the small British guard boats. Many of these boats had been destroyed in the storm at the end of June and the remaining ones were already gravely overstretched ferrying supplies and men as well as with their combat tasks. The Stirling Castle, Saunders’ temporary flagship, ‘sent several flat bottomed boats and longboats to carry troops from Orléans to Point Levis’ on the early afternoon of 5 July. A short ti
me later she ‘sent 4 barrels of powder’ ashore. At 1700 hours she dispatched ‘several boats manned and armed to row guard above Point Levis to ward off any fire ships or stages that the enemy may send down’. While ‘at 4 AM sent several boats to board transports to carry provisions on shore to the army’.103 The hands of the exhausted sailors became hard with calluses as they rowed their boats endlessly to and fro.
It was the kind of opportunistic, autonomous action that appealed to the Canadians and the Native Americans. They fought only when they stood an overwhelming chance of success and never pressed an attack home if the odds changed. Their canoes were faster than the British oared boats. An eyewitness described them measuring ‘from ten to twenty eight feet long’. The smallest of them ‘hold but two persons…as in a coffin’. They took a great deal of skill to use as they ‘are apt to over set; if the passengers move to one side or the other’.104 These canoes were the technology on which French power in North America relied. What roads were to Rome, canals and railways to nine-teenth-century Britain, so rivers were to Canada. It was an empire of waterways. ‘The lakes and rivers are the only outlets,’ wrote Bougainville, ‘the only open roads in this country.’105 The tentacles of French power crossed the continent along the vast galaxy of tributaries that flow into the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, the St Lawrence, and the Mississippi, the watersheds between all these systems being easy to traverse. Journeys of immense distances could be completed in surprisingly short times. New Orleans, 2,000 miles away on the Gulf of Mexico, took around six months to reach by river, and was quite simply impossible over land. Canoes could be fashioned from birch bark with only a knife and an axe; they could float along the shallowest trickle of a stream. A European eyewitness described them as ‘safe and steady’ and ‘very convenient upon the account of their extreme lightness and drawing of very little water’.106 They were also exclusive to Canada; to the south the birch did not grow to the same size and there the Native Americans and British frontiersmen had to use elm, which was heavier, far less durable, and rougher. The Canadian canoes could carry a decent load. Voyageurs paddled hundreds of miles into the pays d’en haut armed with gifts and trade goods, knives, beads, brandy, muskets, and gunpowder to buy the friendship of the Native tribes. They returned to Quebec with mounds of furs, the only Canadian product sold with any success in the markets of Europe.