Montcalm and Wolfe — Chapter 27, Part 2

Perhaps he was as near despair as his undaunted nature was capable of being.

In his present state of body and mind he was a hero without the light and cheer of heroism.

He flattered himself with no illusions, but saw the worst and faced it all.

He seems to have been entirely without excitement.

The languor of disease, the desperation of the chances, and the greatness of the stake may have wrought to tranquillize him.

His energy was doubly tasked: to bear up his own sinking frame, and to achieve an almost hopeless feat of arms.

Audacious as it was, his plan cannot be called rash if we may accept the statement of two well-informed writers on the French side.

They say that on the tenth of September the English naval commanders held a council on board the flagship, in which it was resolved that the lateness of the season required the fleet to leave Quebec without delay.

They say further that Wolfe then went to the Admiral, told him that he had found a place where the heights could be scaled, that he would send up a hundred and fifty picked men to feel the way, and that if they gained a lodgment at the top, the other troops should follow; if, on the other hand, the French were there in force to oppose them, he would not sacrifice the army in a hopeless attempt, but embark them for home, consoled by the thought that all had been done that man could do.

On this, concludes the story, the Admiral and his officers consented to wait the result.

[755] [Footnote 755: This statement is made by the Chevalier Johnstone, and, with some variation, by the author of the valuable _Journal tenu à l'Armée 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 Siége_ (Bibliothêque de Hartwell).

_Journal tenu à l'Armée, etc. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 5 Oct.

_ 1759. ] [Footnote 758: Pontbriand, _Jugement impartial.

_] [Footnote 759: _Montcalm à 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 mémoratif.

Journal tenu à l'Armée_, 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 Beauséjour, 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: Joannès, Major de Quebec, _Mémoire 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 à l'Armée_, etc. ] [Footnote 772: _Mémoires sur le Canada_, 1749-1760. ] [Footnote 773: Foligny, _Journal mémoratif.

Journal à l'Armée_, etc. ]