USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. II > Part 9
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The amount of fatigue endured by the Connecticut troops during this summer, is almost incredible. They labored with the better heart, as they saw that a change had come over the fortunes of the two nations. Nor was the valor of her officers less commendable. After the sloop and the radeau had been completed, two of the enemy's vessels were destroyed. One of the principal and most daring actors in this enterprise was Colonel Putnam.Į
It was a topic of some impatient remark at the time, that General Amherst was over-cautious in his operations upon Lake Champlain, and that he might have advanced upon Quebec in season to have shared in the glory of Wolfe's vic- tory, if not to have saved the life of that hero, had he not attributed too much importance to the movements of the enemy upon Lake Champlain. But when we consider the
* Trumbull, ii. 401.
+ Trumbull ; Graham.
# Humphreys.
39
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
long struggle that had preceded the flight of the French from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the importance of those forti- fications, the necessity of obtaining the entire dominion of the waters of the lake that they in a good degree commanded, and the strength of the garrison still ready, as there was good reason to believe, to make a desperate stand at Isle Aux Noix, especially when we consider how fierce and sudden were the storms that convulsed the lake very early in the autumn months-we shall hardly blame the policy of the English general in doing thoroughly what he had undertaken, although he was delayed so long that winter overtook him at Crown Point. He had succeeded in accomplishing a great and almost bloodless victory by means steady and certain as the wit of man could devise.
The army sent to besiege Niagara had been equally suc- cessful. General Prideaux had reached the fortress about the middle of July, and surrounded it with great skill. A few days after his arrival there, he was killed by the bursting of a cohorn ; and was succeeded in the command by that brave provincial chieftain, Sir William Johnson .* As soon as General Amherst learned of this accident, he sent General Gage from Ticonderoga, to take command of the beleaguering army. The French in the meantime, hoping to save this important post, sent detachments of men from forts Detroit, Venango, and Presque Isle, amounting in all to about twelve hundred men, together with a large body of Indians, to rein- force the garrison at Niagara. Aware of their approach, Sir William Johnson sent out his light infantry, with a body of grenadiers and other regulars, to occupy the road leading from Niagara Falls to the fort, and intercept the enemy as they should arrive. He also stationed parties of Indians along his flanks ; and to prevent an attack from the garrison at this critical time, he posted a large body of troops to guard his trenches.t Before the battle the Indians of the five nations who fought under Sir William Johnson, went out and proposed a conference with the Indians who marched
* Holmes, ii. 89.
t Trumbull, ii. 402 ; Holmes, ii. 89, 90.
99
FORT NIAGARA TAKEN.
[1759.]
in the train of the French army that was now close at hand. This proposition was rejected.
About nine o'clock in the morning, the Indians attached to the French reinforcement raised the war-cry, that most fearful of all notes that ever stirred contending armies to mingle in mortal conflict. Fearfully it rang above the roar of the mightiest of earth's cataracts, and echoed among the precipices and rifts of rock that keep in its shattered chan- nel the river that drains a succession of inland seas. But this terrible war-cry, that had so often been the herald of defeat to British troops, was now a familiar sound to them, and fell upon the ear of the provincials and the brave war- riors of the five nations, as unheeded as the voice of deep calling unto deep from the chasm of the flood, that has been represented by a poet of Connecticut, as a "chronicler of the ages."* So well were the enemy met in front, and so galled on either flank by the warriors of the five nations, that in less than an hour their little army was totally ruined.| D'Aubry, its commander, and sixteen other officers, were taken prisoners, and the remnants of his broken companies were pursued through the woods for a distance of five miles,¿ with such slaughter that their way could literally have been tracked by the blood that stained it.
After the battle, General Johnson informed the leader of the garrison of his victory, and begged him to surrender while yet the fierce Indians who served under him and who had already tasted blood, were under his control. The pro- position was accepted, and thus the fort of Niagara, the con- necting link between Canada and Louisbourg, fell into the hands of the English.
While Amherst, with Putnam and other brave provincial officers, were driving the enemy from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and destroying their vessels upon Lake Cham-
* See Brainard's "Falls of Niagara," one of the most sublime poems of its length in the English language. It has in it a sweep, majesty, and condensed power, worthy of the subject that inspired it.
+ Graham ; Holmes.
# Gen. Johnson's Letter to Amherst.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
plain ; and while Prideaux and Johnson, were engaged in reducing Niagara, thus cutting off the extremities of French colonial power upon the continent ; General Wolfe, with an army of eight thousand men, under convoy of an English fleet commanded by Admirals Saunders, Holmes, and Durel, proceeded up the St. Lawrence, and on the 2d of June, landed his army on the Isle of Orleans, a fine large island in the river a little below Quebec, teeming with inhabitants, abounding in grain and all the conveniences required for the support of his troops.
The attempt upon Quebec was considered the capital enter- prise of the campaign, and was committed to Wolfe, as the man most likely to accomplish whatever is within the range of human achievements. He had also under him some of the most daring officers whose names are recorded on the rolls of British fame. Among them were Brigadiers Monck- ton, Townsend, and Murray, all men of true genius, and fitted like their leader for the most delicate and dangerous crisis. Wolfe was himself a man of transcendant genius and lofty chivalry, of a temperament highly practical, possessing all the enthusiasm of the best Irish blood that flowed so largely in his veins, and all the enduring fidelity to a cause once espoused, that distinguishes the nation to whose historic pages he looked to perpetuate his fame.
The island where he was encamped, lying within full view of the fortress and of the precipitous river bank for miles, gave the English general a fair opportunity to calculate the chances of success .* A man differently moulded would have quailed before the prospect. Situated upon a peninsula formed by the meeting of the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles rivers, upon the brow of a rock that beetled over these streams and the country that lay spread like a map beneath ; well garrisoned and provisioned, Quebec seemed well fitted to keep watch and ward over the noblest of all navigable rivers, that was here so compressed that a cannon ball from the top of Cape Diamond could be
* Holmes, ii. 90.
101
SITUATION OF QUEBEC.
[1759.]
made to do fatal execution beyond the brink of the southern shore.
Across the mouth of the St. Charles had been stretched a boom that was supposed to be a complete barrier, and the rocky channel of that stream was filled with armed vessels and floating batteries, while on its eastern bank, a large body of French troops with safe entrenchments were stationed along the shore of the river to the Falls of Montmorenci .* The black skirts of a forest filled with all the savage tribes and more savage provincials that had enlisted under the banners of the French king, were in their rear, affording a covert as impervious as their lines seemed insur- mountable.
Above the town, the high rock, on which the city and for- tress were built, rose sheer and high along the St. Lawrence for a great distance, and formed what were called the Heights of Abraham. These heights also were guarded with troops. There was therefore no way of approach to the town except by crossing the St. Charles, or by passing up the river and scaling the rocky wall above described .; The English com- mander in addition to all these natural obstacles, had taken the field against Montcalm, the French nobleman, already re- ferred to, who had been trained to chivalry and the practice of arms, and had repeatedly met the British armies only to see them fly before him. He had also under his command a well trained army of ten thousand men, so that he might well have felt himself to be, in an open field without the aid of rock, river, or wood, more than a match for the invader whose forces he far outnumbered. Looking out from his bold cliff like an eagle from his eyrie, the haughty marquis regarded with scorn the few tents that dotted, like so many white- fleeced lambs destined for his destruction, a little patch of the island that lay at his feet.
General Wolfe saw at a glance all the disadvantages that surrounded him. But obstacles to such a mind as his, often act as quickening influences to stimulate to daring deeds.
* Holmes ; Trumbull ; Charlevoix.
t Trumbull, ii. 405.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
Nor were a natural desire to overcome difficulties and to discharge his duty as a soldier and a patriot, the only motives for exertion. Pride had her part to perform. The delays of the Earl of Loudoun, the cowardice of Webb, and the inefficiency of Abercrombie, incited him to exhibit to the world a brilliant and glorious contrast. The life-giving energy of Pitt, the great controlling spirit of the age, also acted upon his sensitive frame like a powerful magnet, keep- ing his eye turned toward the pole-star of victory. No time was lost. He caused batteries to be erected on the west point of the Isle of Orleans and on Point Levi, upon the south- ern side of the river, whence he poured a continual and deadly fire upon the lower town.
Admiral Saunders seconded the operations of the army, having taken his station below the north channel of the Isle of Orleans opposite Montmorenci ; while Admiral Holmes passed up the river and took a position above the town, where he could distract the movements of the enemy and divert their attention from the batteries.
Wolfe now resolved to cross the Montmorenci and bring Montcalm to an engagement. He landed thirteen companies of English grenadiers, and a part of the second battalion of royal Americans, at the mouth of that river. At the same time two divisions under Townsend and Murray, were ordered to cross it farther up the stream, where it was thought that its current could be forded. His object was to get pos- session of a redoubt near the shore, and thus bring on a for- mal engagement. The French resisted this bold manœvre with such success, that Wolfe was obliged to withdraw his troops to his encampment, after having lost five hundred of his bravest men .*
He now adopted other measures. He detached Murray with twelve hundred men in transports to join Admiral Holmes above the town in doing such damage as could be done to the French shipping, and to divide the attention of the enemy, by making attacks upon certain exposed points on
* Holmes, ii. 91.
103
PLAN OF THE ATTACK.
[1759.]
the banks of the river. Murray finally succeeded in destroy- ing a valuable magazine at Chambaud, but neither he or the admiral could do any harm to the ships in their secure posi- tion. He returned, therefore, to the camp, bringing the in- telligence received from his prisoners, that Fort Niagara was reduced, and that General Amherst had driven the French from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and was advancing to attack the army at Isle Aux Noix. Wolfe now saw that he could not be joined by General Amherst during that cam- paign, and that he must either abandon the siege before the winter, that was now fast pressing on, should make both fleet and army an easy prey to the enemy, or he must strike at once a decisive blow .*
A council of officers was held, in which it was proposed to remove the whole army up the river, and renew the attack above the town. The camp was deserted, and the army embarked on board the fleet and was landed in part at Point Levi, and the residue at a place further up the stream. For several days, Admiral Holmes played his ships along the northern shore in such a manner as to draw the enemy as far as possible from the fortress. To watch the fleet and pre- vent the landing of the troops, Montcalm sent fifteen hun- dred men from the camp under Bourgainville, to guard the northern shore.t Still he had little fear that so impractica- ble a thing would be attempted. Meanwhile, Wolfe was suffering from the most excruciating bodily infirmities. In his agony he ordered his three brigadiers to hit upon some plan of attack. These daring young noblemen, after con- sulting together, proposed to him that the river bank should be scaled in the night, and that the enemy should be drawn into a general engagement upon the plains of Abraham.Į Even to those who now pass down the river and look up towards the frowning rocks, the project seems rather a crazed and giddy dream than a sober reality. The swiftness and power of the current, the ledgy shore, the narrowness of the landing, the appalling height of the cliff bristling with senti-
* Holmes, ii. 91, 92. t Holmes.
# Holmes, ii. 91.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
nels ready at the sound of a rolling pebble, or the flitting of a bird's wing, to give the alarm, the army of veteran troops with a train of artillery that might be expected to meet them and sweep them back, should they ever reach the plain-all conspired with the darkness of the night to throw shades of doubt and discouragement upon this wild proposition. Am- herst, brave as he was, would have shrunk from it with hor- ror; and doubtless Scipio would have felt it to be a tempting of the gods. Wolfe, on the other hand, sleepless from watch- ing and racked with pain, accepted it with joy. His power- ful mind was now bent with undivided force to carry it into execution. He no longer felt the pangs of physical pain. His clear mind saw all the details of this fearful undertaking, and with a calmness and stern business capacity, equal to the magnificence of the conception, he attended to the minutest preparations.
On the 12th of September, the whole fleet sailed up the river several leagues above the place where the landing was to be attempted, and at suitable intervals, as if testing the strength of the river bank, without any definite plan, made a feint of attempting to land his troops. Thus the day was spent. The early watches of the night were consumed in a different way. About one o'clock in the morning, the troops who had all been embarked in flat-bottomed boats, with the ebb of the tide and the strength of the stream began to drift down the river toward the landing place. Lest they should miss this point, they were obliged to keep close under the northern shore on account of the darkness. Once or twice they were overheard by the keen sentinels stationed upon the heights, and challenged. A Scotch officer answered in French, that they were a part of Bourgainville's forces exploring the river to watch the doings of the English. This answer deluded the sentinels and they were permitted to pass .*
As they dropped down the river, silence was commanded, on pain of death, in all the boats except the one that bore the general and his officers. Wolfe had a few days before
* Graham.
105
ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.
[1759.]
received from England a copy of Gray's Elegy, that had then just been given to the world; and in that one boat, his im- passioned voice blending with the rippling of the waves, he recited to his officers in a low subdued tone, that most per- fect and plaintive strain of the British muse. When he had completed it, he exclaimed with animation,
"Gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than to take Quebec."*
An hour before day-break they touched the landing. Wolfe was the first to set foot upon the dangerous shore, and, looking up the ragged sides of the ledge, observed quietly to an officer who stood near him, "I doubt if you will get up ; but you must do what you can."
Following a detachment of Scotch Highlanders and light- infantry under Colonel Howe, grasping and pulling them- selves up by vines and shrubs, the gallant army scaled the cliff; and when day broke over the brow of Cape Diamond, it revealed to the garrison the whole British army arranged in battle order upon the plains of Abraham.t
Montcalm would not credit the intelligence when it was made known to him. He could believe that a handful of desperate men had been forced up this almost perpendicular wall for the purpose of throwing him off his guard and draw- ing him from his position, as a preliminary step to a general engagement, which he knew had been desired from the first by the English general. But that an army of eight thousand men could have scaled a wall so rough, and at the same time so sheer and high, in a single night, and in the face of his own argus-eyed sentinels, he conceived to be incredible. But there was no resisting the evidence of his senses. Fired with the recollection of his former success, and roused by the promptings of a noble emulation, he resolved no longer to spare the trial of strength that he had up to that time so cautiously avoided; but to fling the old French banner against the fresh September breeze, and put upon a single die the dominion of his king to the western world.
* Graham. + Wright's History, i. 210; Holmes, ii. 92, 93.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
He planned his order of battle in the most masterly man- ner. His right and left wings were composed each of Euro- pean and colonial troops in about equal proportions. The centre was formed of two battalions of the best French regu- lars that he had under his command ; and there hovered in front of his main army, lurking among the thickets that skirted the table-land over which they moved like a pesti- lence, fifteen hundred French and Indian sharp-shooters, whose business it was to advance and begin the battle with a selection of the most shining marks that glittered along the lines of the English army .*
As soon as Wolfe saw that his cherished wish was about to be realized, and that the enemy was advancing to meet him, he began to form his line consisting of six battalions and the Louisbourg grenadiers. His right wing was com- mitted to Monckton; his left, to Murray. Howe's light in- fantry protected the rear and the left; and the right was covered by the Louisbourg grenadiers. It was obvious from the form in which they advanced that their design was to out- flank his army on the left. To counteract this movement, Wolfe detached General Townsend, with the regiment of Amherst, and two battalions of royal Americans formed with a double front. A single regiment drawn up in eight divis- ions, with large intervals, constituted his body of reserves. When the French commander had advanced near enough to make it practicable, the concealed marksmen, that skulked in the thicket in advance of his army, opened from their hiding-places a well directed fire, that proved fatal to some of the best British officers.t
This was the signal for the opening of the battle. Wolfe had selected his station on the right of his army, and Mont- calm a corresponding one upon the French left. About nine o'clock in the morning, the French army advanced rapidly to the attack, and the battle became fierce and general. Per- haps never in so small an army as that of the English, was there to be found so many officers of high courage and
* Holmes, ii. 93; Trumbull, ii. 410.
+ Holmes ; Trumbull; Graham.
107
WOLFE'S VICTORY.
[1759.]
determined purpose, who looked upon death with such com- posure ; nor a soldiery who were willing to sell their lives at a rate more ruinous to their enemies. With a discipline that seemed like the movements of a piece of mechanism, they advanced in the face of the fire that was directed against them with such deadly effect, until they had come within forty yards of the French line. Then they began that fear- ful and long-sustained discharge of musketry, that was kept up with unremitting regularity, until the advancing tide of the battle was checked and began to roll backwards along the whole line of the French army. Montcalm made the most desperate exertions to sustain his position. Early in the action fortune seemed to favor him. Wolfe, while he stood in the front line, a fair mark for the Canadians, was sin- gled out and wounded in the wrist. Without showing a sign of pain, he wrapped a handkerchief around the wound, and continued to issue his orders with the same coolness as before. A second bullet, better aimed, soon pierced his groin ; but still unruffled and persevering, he concealed this probably fatal injury, and was leading on his grenadiers, with the same chivalrous bearing, when a third musket ball entered his breast, and he fell.
The fall of their leader, often so fatal on the battle-field, so far from being the signal for defeat to the English army, fired them with the spirit of revenge ; and they fought first under Monckton, and, after he was disabled, under Townsend, with new zeal. About the time that Wolfe received the last shot, his gallant rival, Montcalm, fell of a mortal wound. The command of the French now devolved upon General Senezergues, who shortly fell, and with him fell the courage and hopes of the army. The British right wing, where Wolfe had fought, with fixed bayonets charged home upon them. At this critical time the impetuous Murray, coming up, broke their centre; and the Scotch Highlanders-an enemy of whom they had a superstitious horror-drawing their claymores and rushing wildly upon them, swept them from the field. The victory was complete. One thousand
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
of the enemy fell in the battle, and in the flight that followed it; and about the same number were made prisoners. In killed and wounded, the loss of the English was less than six hundred men .*
After Wolfe had received the wound in his breast, he was placed under the charge of a lieutenant, who, with such ten- derness as mothers feel for their expiring offspring, placed the head of the general upon his shoulder and supported him in the position that seemed most easy for him. As the officer saw the French lines break and give back, he exclaimed aloud, "They run! they run !" " Who runs?" cried the dying hero, a momentary beam of intelligence again lighting up his pale cheek and flashing in his glazed eye. "The French," replied the lieutenant. "Then I die happy," exclaimed Wolfe, in a cheerful tone, and instantly expired. t
Thus the truism so beautifully expressed by the poet had proved to him a prophecy :
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave !";
The provincial troops who were engaged in this action, fought with as much steadiness and bravery as the British regulars, and America as well as England exulted alike in the capture of Quebec, and mourned as well over the fall of one of the most brilliant military chieftains that have shed light upon the history that belongs in common to all the nations that inherit the blood and speak the language of the Saxon.
The campaign of 1759, brilliant and glorious as it had been, had still left much to be done. The remnants of Montcalm's
* Holmes, ii. 94 ; Mante, iv. 4, 6 ; Rogers' Journal.
t Gen. James Wolfe was only thirty-three years of age at the time of his death. An incident similar to the above, occurred in the last hours of Montcalm. On being told that he could live but a few hours, he replied, " So much the bet- ter; I shall not then live to see the surrender of Quebec."
# For the anecdote of the "Elegy," the reader is referred to Graham, iv. 51. This careful and learned author has given a better account of this battle than any other that I have seen. He has placed all writers who will succeed him under obligations that for one, I am proud to owe to a Briton who has the manliness to do justice to America.
.
109
EFFORTS OF MURRAY.
[1759.]
army, still formidable, had retired to Trois Rivieres and Mon- treal, and besides, there was still a large force at Isle Aux Noix. Cut off as these troops were from all chance of recruits or supplies either from the ocean or the continent, they had no other alternative now left to themselves, than to surrender at the discretion of their conquerors, or to make a last and desperate effort to redeem their lost fortunes. The defeated army of Montcalm, now under the command of the brave Monsieur Levi, still outnumbered the land army of Wolfe, that had taken Quebec from the French. The Eng- lish fleet had already left the St. Lawrence, and could not be expected to return until after the breaking up of the ice in the spring .*
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