Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  By the end of September Wolfe and Hardy were back at Louisbourg. Thoroughly tired of his stay in North America and yearning to be home, Wolfe took advantage of Boscawen's offer to carry him across in Namur. Before he left he wrote to Amherst, who had moved his winter headquarters to New York: "If any understanding is determined upon in the River St. Lawrence I should be very glad to return in the Spring. If not I should endeavour to join the Army in Germany."57 After a fast but miserable passage of a month, Wolfe, seasick as usual, arrived at Portsmouth on November 1.

  (9)

  Quebec Besieged

  If you presume to send down any more fire-rafts, they

  shall be made fast to the two transports in which the

  Canadian prisoners are confined in order that

  they may perish by your own base invention.

  —Wolfe to Montcalm, July 28, 1759

  Despite Wolfe's parting remarks to Amherst about returning to serve in America, the young colonel (his rank as brigadier was confined to America) truly longed for a command in Germany. He was certain that service on the Continent promised more glory than he could ever achieve in the wilderness of North America. Cavalry was his first choice, "because nature ha[d] given [him] good eyes, and a warmth of temper to follow the first impressions." 1

  Wolfe's desire to be in Germany reflected a dramatic change in the military situation on the Continent. Humiliated by his son's concessions at Klosterseven, George II sought and found a way to dissociate himself from Cumberland's agreement, claiming that the French had failed to live up to their part of the bargain by not withdrawing from conquered lands. Whatever the validity of the claim, it was sufficient to justify renewed British participation, which was particularly pleasing to Frederick. In November 1757 England agreed to send troops and money as part of a reconstituted army to be commanded by Prince Ferdinand.

  Ferdinand labored during the waning months of 1757 to reorganize his army and make it ready for the spring campaigning season. The plan was for Ferdinand to hold the west against the French while Frederick concentrated on the Austrians and Russians in the east. Although they both paid a high price on the battlefield, each managed to hold their foes at bay and even return some victories. Their success put additional pressure on Pitt to send help. The minister loathed the notion of sending almost anything to Germany, but he recognized that Ferdinand and Frederick were performing a notable service by tying down thousands of French soldiers who might otherwise be sent to Canada. For a modest investment in men and money, Pitt cashed a sizable dividend. In July 1758 he agreed to the posting of six cavalry and six infantry regiments to Ferdinand's army. Wolfe yearned to be part of this "glorious reenforcement."

  But Pitt had his own plans for Wolfe. With Amherst he had a logistical genius—a methodical general who had proven that he knew how to feed, supply, and move an army. In Wolfe he found a tactician and daring combat commander who could move fast and strike hard.

  Amherst's mission for 1759 was to march north from his Albany headquarters, seize Ticonderoga and Crown Point, take control of Lake Champlain, and then move down the Richelieu to the St. Lawrence. Simultaneous with this attack another smaller expedition under Brigadier General John Prideaux was ordered to move against Fort Niagara. By late summer Pitt expected Amherst to have captured Montreal and be on his way to Quebec, where, if all went well, he would link with a second force, which had advanced on the city from the north via Louisbourg and the St. Lawrence River. Pitt selected Wolfe to command this force.

  To attack Quebec from the north required transporting a combined land and naval force on a voyage of nearly nine hundred miles, one-third of it running up the St. Lawrence River.2 Logistical support was limited, and so was time. Ice often formed on the river in October and stayed until April. Wolfe could not count on Canada's harsh environment granting him more than twelve weeks to complete the campaign.3 But weather was only part of the problem. Even in the navigable season the river was treacherous. Fogs, currents, dramatic tides, and uncharted shoals made the St. Lawrence a graveyard for the unwary. In 1711 a British expedition led by Sir Hovenden Walker and bound against Quebec had rounded the Gaspe and entered the river only to be wrapped tightly in fog. Within hours several vessels grounded and wrecked, and more than nine hundred men drowned. Walker abandoned the venture, came about, and headed for home.4 Since the days of Walker's debacle the river had not grown kinder; nor had the British learned more about its navigation.

  Picking Wolfe was a daring stroke, but it was only part of Pitt's even bolder strategy. For the second year in a row England would launch massive assaults on Canada. Newcastle and others were deeply troubled, muttering to one another that Canada was as much an obsession of Pitt's as Hanover was to the king.

  In France the political wheels at Versailles had taken a new turn. On November 1, 1758, the due de Choiseuil became minister of foreign affairs. A favorite of the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, Choiseuil had recently returned to Paris from Vienna, where he had been serving as ambassador and had successfully scripted the diplomatic coup that joined Austria and France against Prussia. Choiseuil understood that England's true strength lay in its deep financial resources. Despite Newcastle's shortcomings as a manager of foreign affairs, in finance he had few equals.5 Financial stability, however, rested on the ability of the government to borrow money at decent rates. Rates, in turn, depended upon the government's ability to repay its debt in a timely and orderly fashion. Shake the national faith, and interest rates would rise, while bankers would grow timid. If England ran short of money, Frederick would lose his milch cow, and Pitt would be unable to support costly overseas expeditions. Choiseuil's strategy was to alarm the bankers, and to achieve his goal he revived a plan to invade England.

  Regiments of French soldiers marched to the ports and prepared to embark. Thousands of carpenters went to work assembling flat-bottomed invasion barges, while skeptical French admirals tried to figure out how they could protect a channel crossing under the very noses of the Royal Navy. Since Choiseuil's strategy was to divert and panic the English, the French made little secret about their invasion plans. French agents passed on exaggerated reports to credulous English officials, who spread them throughout the kingdom. London newspapers were filled with near hysterical accounts of French preparations. Coffeehouses echoed with rumors. Hapless militia were summoned to duty, while coast watchers scanned the Channel looking for signs of the enemy armada. In London invasion jitters infected the cabinet.

  In the midst of this alarm Pitt did not waver. Despite enormous pressure to reduce overseas commitments and strengthen the home island, he would not back away from his all-out goal of taking Canada. He had, he said, faith in Lord Anson and the Royal Navy to stop the French from ever crossing the Channel.

  Pitt was disappointed that Wolfe had returned to England. Although he had yet to inform the colonel of his plans for him, Pitt had intended that Wolfe remain in America over the winter so that the Quebec campaign could get off to an early start. When he learned that Wolfe was in London, he began to have doubts about the young colonel. As soon as Wolfe heard of Pitt's unhappiness, he rushed off a note to assure him that he was totally unaware of the minister's desire for him to stay in Canada, and that he had "no objection to serving in America, and particularly in the river St. Lawrence."6 Wolfe's apologetic note resulted in a summons to Whitehall. Reassured by the young colonel's vigor and intelligence, Pitt decided to defy the claims of seniority. He arranged that by the king's order Wolfe would command the Quebec expedition. Wolfe wasted no time, and within a few days he was peppering the ministry with requests for men, materiel, and transport.

  The success of his mission hinged on controlling the St. Lawrence to block French ships from coming to Quebec's assistance and to provide safe passage for his army. Wolfe told Amherst, "Let the Fleet carry us up and we will find employment."7 He was not convinced, however, that the Royal Navy was up to the task, and when he learned that Rear Admiral Philip Durrell wa
s to be second in command of the naval force, with special responsibility for the blockade, he was filled with even more doubt. Wolfe knew Durrell and disliked him. The admiral had served under Boscawen and Holbourne and with Wolfe at Louisbourg. When the senior commanders returned home in late 1758, the Admiralty left Durrell at Halifax with firm instructions to move in the spring as early as possible to block the St. Lawrence. In Wolfe'swords, Durrell was "vastly unequal to the weight of the business."8

  If Durrell's appointment disappointed Wolfe, the posting of Admiral Charles Saunders to overall command of the naval force offered fair recompense. Saunders had been with Anson on his famous voyage around the world, and he enjoyed a high reputation as an aggressive, if taciturn, commander. He was, in Walpole's words, "that brave statue. . . . No man said less, or deserved more."9 Saunders's modesty notwithstanding, the admiral also wielded political clout, since he served as comptroller of the navy and sat as a member of Parliament for Hedon in Yorkshire. The most junior flag officer was Charles Holmes. Like Durrell, Holmes had spent several years on the North American station, having sailed there early in the war with Boscawen and later commanded a blocking squadron that had attempted, and failed, to shut up Louisbourg.

  James Wolfe

  Wolfe had little say over the appointment of sea officers; if he had, it is likely that neither Durrell nor Holmes would have been on station. He was far less reticent over the issue of army appointments. No question was more important to him than the choice of his subordinates. Here, as he exerted his influence, Wolfe encountered politics, first at the hands of His Majesty and then from his patrons, Pitt and Ligonier.

  Colonel Guy Carleton and Wolfe were old friends. Barely a year previous he had tried to get Carleton a command on the Louisbourg expedition, but the king "refused Carleton leave to go."10 The king's objections were petty and personal. A courtier whispered to him that Carleton had uttered some unkind remarks about Hanover, a slight George II never forgot, and for this the colonel was punished. Despite Carleton's unpopularity at court, Wolfe was determined to press his friend's cause. He presented Carleton's name for quartermaster general in the Quebec expedition. The king rejected him. Wolfe enlisted Ligonier's support, telling his superior in a somewhat untoward tone, "[Unless you] would give me the assistance of such officers as I should name . . . he [the king] would do me a great kindness to appoint some other person to the chief direction."11 Perhaps seeing in the impetuousness of the young Wolfe his own reflection, the old general twice appealed to the king on Carleton's behalf, but was rebuffed. More anxious to appease the young colonel than to curry favor with an obstinate monarch, Pitt himself wrote to George II "that in order to render any General completely responsible for his conduct, he should be made, as far as possible, inexcusable, if he should fail; and that, consequently, whatever an officer entrusted with a service of confidence requests should be complied with."12 The king grumbled and signed Carleton's commission.

  Pitt's admonition to the king was not one he always followed himself. On at least two occasions Pitt disappointed Wolfe over issues important to the commander: his own rank and the appointment of subordinates. Wolfe was a colonel promoted to the rank of major general, but the higher rank existed only in America. As soon as he finished the business in America and returned home, he would revert to the lower rank. This arrangement was not unusual. Regular officers were often brevetted when commanding in the field, but it was annoying to the proud Wolfe that his promotion was not permanent. He wanted both rank and the money it would bring. He might, however, have let the issue pass with less notice if Pitt hadn't nipped at his authority in a second way.

  Wolfe divided his army into three brigades, each to be led by a brigadier. Like their commander, each brigadier held that rank only in America. Wolfe expected that he would have the right to name these men, and he favored Robert Monckton, James Murray, and Ralph Burton.

  As senior brigadier, Monckton took the first brigade. During the War of the Austrian Succession he had served in Germany with Wolfe, and he had also marched with Cumberland to suppress the Jacobite Rebellion led by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745—46. In the earliest days of the war Monckton captured Forts Beausejour and Gaspereau. An old hand in Canada, since 1755 he had been serving as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia. When Wolfe chose him, Monckton was in New York conferring with Amherst in anticipation of taking command in the Carolinas. The posting north was much to his liking.

  To Wolfe's great annoyance, command of the second brigade did not go to his choice. Wolfe wanted Ralph Burton, like Monckton, a veteran of the American war. He had been with Braddock at the Monongahela, with Loudoun in New York, and served under Amherst at Louisbourg, where Wolfe had met him. Burton, however, was not Pitt's choice. For political reasons the minister's favor fell on Newcastle's nephew George Townshend, then an unemployed army officer looking for work. A skillful political manipulator, and according to Wolfe's aide Captain Thomas Bell "an excellent Tavern acquaintance," Townshend was infamous for his dripping sarcasm, which he often combined with his talents as a caricaturist to pillory his opponents. Pitt felt obligated to him since Townshend had supported him in Parliament. He was, nonetheless, a troublesome man, and Pitt looked forward to having him out of the country.13 Since he had gotten most of what he wanted, Wolfe accepted this petty defeat gracefully, and in a restrained letter he welcomed Townshend to his army. Burton joined the expedition with the Forty-eighth Regiment.

  While he lost the day with Townshend, Wolfe was pleased that the third brigade went to James Murray. Like Burton, Murray was a comrade in arms from the Louisbourg campaign. He had also served with Wolfe in Scotland and through the ill-fated Rochefort attack. Although the most junior of the three brigadiers, Wolfe viewed Murray as a soldier of "infinite spirit." Others characterized that same "spirit" as "hot headed and impetuous."14

  Anticipating a siege, Wolfe needed an able artillery commander, and he found one in George Williamson. At age fifty-five, Williamson became the oldest member of Wolfe's staff.15 Adjutant General Major Isaac Barre served as Wolfe's chief of staff. As large and robust as Wolfe was thin and frail, Barre and his commander had been together at Rochefort. He and Carleton were Wolfe's closest and most loyal friends. In later years, when Barre became the enfant terrible of British politics (and a notable defender of the rights of the American colonies), he remembered Wolfe as that "noble-hearted soldier."16

  Wolfe valued none of his officers more than Patrick Mackellar, his chief engineer. Mackellar arrived in America with Braddock and survived the Monongahela. He was not so lucky at Oswego, where he was among the prisoners Montcalm trundled off to Quebec. He remained in the city several months under loose confinement, which allowed him considerable leeway to walk about Quebec studying its defenses. Shortly after being exchanged, he returned to England. Blessed with an engineer's eye, a packet of notes, and a good memory, Mackellar drew a detailed map of the city and its defenses for the Board of Ordnance. In 1758 Mackellar joined the Louisbourg expedition as Chief Engineer John Henry Bastide's deputy. When Bastide was wounded, Mackellar took over his duties. Wolfe had been impressed by the engineer's skill, and since Mackellar was the only senior officer to have seen Quebec, his personal and professional knowledge were key to the operation.17

  By "Secret Instructions," the king ordered Wolfe to get under way from England in time to arrive at Louisbourg no later than April 20, 1759, "if the season will permit."18 The Admiralty told Saunders to rendezvous with Wolfe at Cape Breton. The combined force was to be on its way up the St. Lawrence by May 7. Pitt promised Wolfe an army of twelve thousand soldiers and a naval armada sufficient to his needs. To ensure that the land force would be ready in a timely way, rather than wait to muster all the troops in England Pitt stripped the garrisons at Halifax, Annapolis, and Louisbourg to provide regular battalions, which he promised would be replaced by provincial levies. In addition, he put Amherst on notice to prepare transport and provisions in New York and Boston.

  Wol
fe, however, was not satisfied. Beset by his chronic seasickness, he wrote to Amherst while aboard Neptune in mid-Atlantic. He complained bitterly about the ministry's lack of support for his expedition. "The Government have fail'd in the most material article which is the Number of Troops." In his estimation too many battalions had been posted to the Champlain route and not enough to the St. Lawrence. He had no faith "that the Militias will get to their posts." Should he fail to take Quebec, he assured Amherst that before he retreated he would "set the Town on fire, . . . and leave famine and desolation behind."19

  On February 14 the vanguard of a fleet that eventually numbered nearly a quarter of the entire Royal Navy cleared Spithead under the command of Admiral Holmes. Six ships of the line, nine frigates, and sixty transports headed for New York to rendezvous with additional forces gathered there by Amherst. Three days later the main body under Saunders, with Wolfe, left the same port bound for Louisbourg. The plan was for both fleets, plus the expected colonial contingents, to meet at Cape Breton by Pitt's deadline of April 20.