by Dan Snow
Fortune had not smiled on the French thus far but now a dose of luck had delivered a considerable victory. According to the priest Jean-Félix Récher, the victory ‘caused us great joy’.69 Vaudreuil believed Quebec had been saved for the year. ‘The day was brilliant,’ he wrote to de Lévis, ‘and would certainly have been decisive for us if the British had been a bit less prudent.’ He had ‘the greatest hopes for the campaign’. In a calculated snub to Montcalm, Vaudreuil showered praise on de Lévis, telling him that ‘the happy events of the day are due to your conjectures’.70 De Lévis himself was particularly pleased by the lack of casualties among his men. He wrote in his journal that the French had lost ‘20 to 30 soldiers and just a few wounded officers’.71 Montcalm was cheered by the ‘fine shooting’ of his troops and their ‘very good composure’ but he remained typically pessimistic. He worried that the British would be thirsting for revenge.72 The real lesson for the French commanders was that when they were used properly Native Americans and Canadians could take their place alongside regular troops. One French officer said that they ‘exhibited, on this occasion, all the firmness that could be expected’.73 Joyful men broke out white French flags all along their trenches. Vaudreuil summed up the mood in a letter two days later, saying it ‘is to be hoped that the English want to engage in a general affair’, believing that another defeat would send the British back down the St Lawrence.74
Wolfe tried to cut the figure of a defiant leader in public. The next day he scolded his hot-headed men, telling them that
the check which the grenadiers met yesterday will, it is hoped, be a lesson to them for the future. They ought to know that such impetuous, irregular, and unsoldier-like proceeding destroys all order, and makes it impossible for the commander to form any disposition for an attack, and puts it out of the general’s power to execute his plan. The grenadiers could not suppose that they alone could beat the French Army.
However, he continued, ‘the loss…is inconsiderable; and may, if the men show a proper attention to their officers, be easily repaired when a favourable opportunity offers’.75 In private, though, he seems to have let this defeat blacken his entire outlook. Later he admitted that ‘if the attack had succeeded, our loss must certainly have been great, and theirs inconsiderable’. After all, ‘the river of St Charles still remained to be passed, before the town was invested’.76 He wrote a weak, apologetic letter to Saunders. In it he attempted to blame Cook for his assurances that the Cats could get close in; however, he does not push the point. He wrote dramatically that the ‘blame’ for ‘that unlucky day…I take entirely upon my own shoulders, and expect to suffer for it. Accidents cannot be helped; as much of the plan as was defective falls upon me.’ ‘The great fault of the day,’ he thought, was ’in putting too many men into boats, who might have been landed the day before and might have crossed the ford with certainty, while only a small body remained afloat; and the superfluous boats of the fleet employed in a feint that might divide the enemy’s force’. He ended by telling Saunders that ‘a man sees his error often too late to remedy’.77 His ‘Family Journal’, predictably, found fault with others. As well as blaming the grenadiers, it could not resist a dig at the navy. The fire-support from the Centurion and others ‘annoyed’ rather than ‘hurt’ the enemy. While ‘a mistake by the regulating captain of the boats’, it says, ‘in some measure occasioned’ the disorder that befell the force when they landed: ‘The unavoidable delays that naturally present themselves in so complex an affair gave the enemy a full discovery of the place intended to be attacked and time to draw their troops there.’78 Defeat corroded still further his damaged relations with the navy and his subordinates. One of them, his Chief Engineer, Patrick Mackellar, confided to his journal that he had a very negative outlook. At the beginning of August he wrote, ‘there is little or no chance of landing upon a coast naturally strong and fortified, and defended by superior numbers, so that the capture of the city had now become doubtful’.79
History places blame and finds excuses. The shallows, weather, and tide had conspired to frustrate Wolfe, his grenadiers had shown too much spirit, and the French defences were more imposing than they had looked from the Île d’Orléans. But failure in battle is always so obvious in retrospect. Had he been victorious Wolfe’s plan would have been ‘bold’; but in defeat it was ‘foolhardy’. What mattered in the days and weeks following was not the strength or weakness of Wolfe’s plan but that the French had not administered a crushing defeat. Wolfe’s army was intact, if battered. It was in his own mind that he would have to find the resources to overcome defeat. Fought on the last day of July it fell precisely on the half way point of the summer campaigning season which ran from June to the beginning of October. Stalemate beckoned; only inspired generalship could avoid it. But would disappointment at Montmorency dent Wolfe’s belief in himself and stop him showing the leadership required to defeat his enemy?
TEN
‘It is war of the worst shape’
AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ARMY had procedures for everything, even death and defeat. After the battle, neat lists of killed and wounded were compiled by every regiment on both sides. Quick burial of the dead was essential to prevent the spread of disease. French troops set to work burying the corpses of friend and foe alike, scattered all over the beach and the redoubt on the west side of the Montmorency falls. Before they went into the ground every pocket and fold of clothing was rifled through for food and valuables. The British also buried the slow trickle of men who succumbed to their wounds. Over the next few days possessions were auctioned off to pay off the debts that the dead owed the living.
Two officers of Otway’s 35th Regiment who had been killed during Wolfe’s reconnoitre along the Montmorency a week before had their effects auctioned off on 8 August. They had both led a spirited counterattack during the heavy skirmishing. Wolfe’s ‘Family Journal’ says their leadership ‘gave a turn to the day’, but their courage had cost them their lives.1 The army was informed on the fourth that if anyone was owed money by either of the two men they should go and see a Major Morris of the 35th to stake their claim. On the seventh it was announced that ‘part of the effects of Captain Fletcher and Lieutenant Hamilton, late of Otway’s regiment, to be sold tomorrow at ten o’clock in the rear of said regiment’.2 Soldiers lived in debt. What little they did receive in payment was often recklessly gambled away. When men were killed their creditors asked their commanding officers for payment out of their wages. If more money was required then the dead man’s property was auctioned off. In the fortnight after the defeat at Montmorency there were many such auctions. It was an excellent opportunity to buy replacement kit. In particular, sergeants and ‘volunteers’ who were given commissions in the field found them an invaluable chance to buy items of their new uniform that would otherwise be far beyond their means. Dead men were not just stripped of their assets; if their wives had accompanied the army their allocation of rations could stop, depending on the attitude of the regimental commander, on the day their husbands died. The severity with which this was implemented varied from one unit to another but there were numerous cases of widows being forced to remarry just hours after the death of their husbands.3
Wolfe made sure his men remained busy. He ordered a massive bombardment of Quebec from the Point Lévis batteries on the night of 1/2 August as if rearranging the rubble of the destroyed town would make up for his setback. The camp at Montmorency was to be further strengthened; Wolfe wanted to be sure, as he wrote in his journal, that ‘we may receive no insult from an enemy impatient to decide their fate by an action’.4 He wrote to Monckton saying, ‘This check must not discourage us, the loss is not great. Keep the men in gentle exercise, drive away all your superfluous sutlers and prepare for another and, I hope, a better attempt.’5
Messengers flitted between the armies under flags of truce. Both sides attempted to paint themselves as the guardians of civilized values during the arcane exchange of letters. Wolfe was notified that his d
ead had been given Christian burial and that his wounded, including the mauled Captain Ochterlony who was still clinging to life, were being looked after by the nuns of the General Hospital. Le Mercier, the artilleryman, who was the usual choice as courier, carried a note from Ochterlony which Townshend’s journal reports as saying ‘he owed his life to a French Grenadier, who saved him from the cruelty of the Indians, [and] that he is taken good care of’.6 In a covering letter Vaudreuil wrote to Wolfe telling him that he would ensure good treatment of all prisoners. The French would furnish Ochterlony with any money he should require in accordance with established practice; the two staffs would settle everything up at the end of the campaign. Vaudreuil also asked Wolfe to stop locking up women and children on transports, as they were non-combatants.7 Meanwhile, Le Mercier brought ‘refreshments’ for the prisoners to try to alleviate their suffering while cooped up aboard British ships.8 It was a good opportunity to pick up scraps of information. Le Mercier talked to a frigate captain who told him that Wolfe was ‘a very brave man but he is not a general’. Another officer told him that the Native Americans were terrifying and the French seemed to have a lot of them.9
While his officers gossiped with the enemy, Wolfe wrote to Vaudreuil and with it he sent a twenty-guinea reward for the grenadier who had saved Captain Ochterlony’s life. Vaudreuil sent the money back saying that the man was simply doing his duty. Wolfe then wrote to the Mother Superior of the General Hospital and promised her that he would protect her community of nuns, out of gratitude for their care for the British wounded. This goodwill remained undimmed even after the death of the unfortunate Ochterlony in mid-August, whom even twenty-first-century medicine would have struggled to save. A message was sent to the British to inform them, according to Panet, that he had left everything he had to the French grenadier who had saved his life.10 These exchanges are remarkable, but so is the extent to which everyone in either army seemed to know the contents of each message. Even the most junior ranks seem to have known the details of their generals’ correspondence. Sources on both sides are in remarkable agreement. One thing the British sources did not pick up on was the effect of Wolfe’s promise of protection to the nuns. A French journal tells us that ‘this letter made the General Hospital be considered as a place of perfect security, and everybody was hurrying to deposit in it, whatever they had that was most valuable’.11
Quite apart from the rhetorical sparring, truces were an opportunity for all sorts of other activities. The defenders of Quebec had used the ceasefire on 24 July to rebuild their batteries. One French journal says that the ’real motive was to obtain time for employing 3 or 400 men to clean the streets, which were filled with the ruins of the buildings demolished by the cannon of the besiegers, for no person had dared to attempt working in the streets whilst the cannonading continued’.12 Perhaps strangest of all is a note in another French journal which reports that during the third truce in as many days in the first week of August ‘many of the English embraced this opportunity to visit Quebec and some of the French also visited the enemy’.13
The year before Bougainville had become very friendly with General Abercrombie’s nephew, a captain by the same name. They had exchanged views on North America and Abercrombie had been able to fill the Frenchman in on all the news from the other theatres of the war. Bougainville received a ‘basket of Bristol beer’ and in return he sent the British officer several bottles of ‘Pacaret wine’. Bougainville had written in his diary that this was ‘a necessary and good example to set in this barbarous country, not only on account of humanity but because of politeness between enemies at war’.14
The inhabitants of Quebec did not regard the bombardment of their houses as polite. Night after night they endured the sound of cannonballs tearing through masonry and carcasses thundering through wooden roofs. On the night of 16 August Panet watched as townspeople tried to douse the flames that were consuming a widow’s house near to one of Quebec’s many monasteries. It had been hit by one of ‘many bombs and fireballs’. Two priests and two carpenters ‘prevented the spread of the fire, by climbing on top of the neighbouring house’ and stripping it of flammable material. This was ‘despite the bombs and the cannonballs which were being aimed at the fire’. Panet ‘left in fear’ after ‘two cannonballs grazed’ him and one board from the roof of the monastery, ‘detached by a cannonball’, crashed to the ground between him and a monk.15 The parish priest, Jean-Félix Récher, becoming so used to the bombardment, wrote in the middle of August that ‘these kind of cannonades occur so often, nearly every day, that I do not even notice’.16
Wolfe’s disappointments on either side of the Montmorency River renewed his interest in the river above Quebec. Murray, his ambitious and impatient junior brigadier, was to be given an independent command to head upriver and cause trouble. Wolfe’s instructions allowed plenty of latitude. Murray was to attempt to attack French shipping and supplies towards Trois Rivières. This would ‘divide and distract’ them and might just even open a channel of communication through to Amherst, whom Wolfe hoped might be marching up the Lake George-Lake Champlain corridor by now. Above all, as Wolfe wrote to Murray, he should do what ‘mischief’ he could and ‘oblige the enemy to divide his force and carry his attention to the upper river’. Wolfe also encouraged him ’to endeavour to bring any of their detachments to an engagement, if their numbers do not so far exceed your own, and you may take the most effectual measures in your power by burning some of their houses or taking their women prisoners to engage them to fight’.17
Murray would be given around twelve hundred men. Knox watched as the chosen units ‘marched into the woods’ in order to receive specialist training. They ‘performed several manoeuvres which were showed them, in case of being attacked in front, rear, right, left’.18 The force was composed of Amherst’s 15th Regiment, 300 Royal Americans of the 3/60th, 200 light infantrymen, and 200 marines. Among the light infantrymen was the light company of Fraser’s 78th Highland Regiment, now widely seen as one of the finest units in the army. There were also twenty rangers whose job it would be to try to get through to Amherst. The force marched along the south bank of the St Lawrence and were met on 6 August by twenty flat-bottomed boats, which the night before had used rainy and squally conditions to pass the narrows. The French heard the sound of oars too late and barely fired a shot as they slipped past.
Montcalm’s outlook was not greatly brightened by his success at Montmorency. His journal and letters to de Lévis are pessimistic. Both his and Vaudreuil’s letters contain constant references to sleep deprivation, caused by the constant flow of messengers updating them on the fluid situation across the wide theatre of operations. ‘I did not sleep last night,’ Vaudreuil wrote to de Lévis at the end of July, ‘and likely will not have the time during the day.’19 The exhausted Montcalm was now deeply unhappy about all this activity across what he had viewed as his secure lines of communication. He had reinforced the first detachments he had sent to guard the upper river until he had quite a formidable force there. When Murray made his move Montcalm sent his protégé Bougainville to keep an eye on him with ‘a company of grenadiers, a light company of regulars, and one of militia’. Bougainville’s journal also speaks of a force of 150 ‘volunteer cavalry under the command of M de la Rochebeaucourt…Instructed and disciplined by this officer, who has served with the greatest distinction.’20 This force would grow until by the end of August Bougainville had the elite from Montcalm’s five French infantry regiments, their grenadier and light companies, in all 500 men. He also had, according to one senior officer, ‘five hundred picked Canadians, and about six hundred selected at random’.21 Bougainville’s unenviable job was to shadow the British flotilla as it sailed or simply drifted back and forward with the tide in order to oppose any landing that Murray might make. He set the men to work fortifying various points at which a force could land on the north shore. A French journal says that ‘although Anse des Mères, Anse au Foulon, Sillery, and St Michel were r
egarded as inaccessible, nevertheless the engineers were sent thither for the purpose of having ditches and abatis constructed in the slopes leading thereto’.22
Murray’s force sailed about forty-five miles upriver of Quebec at which point ‘the pilots would not take even the Cats farther’. On the shore he wrote to Wolfe that he could see ‘a considerable body of foot’ which ‘kept pace’ with their movements. From what he could make out ‘they appeared to be regulars’. He also caught sight of the mounted troops. Murray was spoiling for a fight and within days he thought he had found a way to strike a blow. On 8 August he spotted two floating batteries and he thought it ‘was very practicable to drive them on shore’. Then he would land troops and make the enemy ‘fight in defence of their floating batteries’.23