Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire. Dan Snow
more familiar to the young soldiers’.65 For many it would be the first time they had trained with anything other than their own company of, at most, a hundred men.
At Louisbourg Wolfe’s army got the opportunity to make up for the scarcities of peacetime. Gunpowder and musket balls were issued to every soldier; the daily crackle of musket volleys echoed around the bay. Malcolm Fraser was a 26-year-old subaltern. He was an unlikely redcoat. His father had been ‘out’ for Charles James Stuart in the ‘45 rebellion, when Bonnie Prince Charlie had attempted to seize the throne of Britain back from his distant cousin George II. Charles’ depleted, exhausted, and starving army was annihilated on Drumossie Moor, a battle known to history as Culloden. With suicidal bravery the Highlanders had charged into withering British musketry and artillery fire, leaving the moor heaped with dead. Among the fallen was Malcolm Fraser’s father. The rebellion lingered on long enough to give the Duke of Cumberland an excuse to launch a systematic and brutal campaign of counter-insurgency throughout the Highlands. Settlements were burnt, men transported to the New World, and Highland dress, weapons, and bagpipes were all banned. Wolfe had served during the campaign and remained in Scotland long afterwards as part of what was effectively an army of occupation.
Now, only a decade later, the British government’s need for troops forced them to swallow their mistrust of the Highlanders and acquiesce to some recruitment among the more loyal clans. The prospect of economic and social advancement as well as the chance to don traditional Highland garb and assemble with their fellow clansmen on the field of battle ensured that the new Highland regiments were inundated with volunteers. Men begged to serve in the army that had recently slaughtered their fathers and uncles. Malcolm Fraser appears at ease with his inverted allegiance. Loyalty to the family and clan were far more important than the external allegiance of their chief. It mattered little to him which descendant of James VI and I sat on the throne in London. Men like him were happy if they were among their peers, a brace of pistols and a long Highland sword at the waist, accompanied by the clan piper playing traditional airs. Fraser described this period of intensive training after a long winter of isolation with excitement in his journal. ‘We are ordered ashore every day while here,’ he wrote, ‘to exercise along with the rest of the Army.’66 On 31 May four regiments ‘performed several manoeuvres in presence of the General Officers, such as charging in line of battle, forming the line into columns, and reducing them; dispersing, rallying…Which were all so well executed, as to afford the highest satisfaction to the generals.’67
While Fraser, Knox, and the other soldiers trained, Wolfe continued in his attempts to scrape together every last man for the expedition and ensure that they were fed and kept as healthy as possible. The garrison at Louisbourg was under the command of the Governor, Brigadier Edward Whitmore. It consisted of four regiments, one of which, Colonel Bragg’s 28th, was ordered to join Wolfe’s army. Each regiment in the British army also had a grenadier company. This was made up of the elite of each regiment, physically fit and experienced veterans, distinguished by different uniforms and headwear. Wolfe was given the three grenadier companies from the remaining regiments of the Louisbourg garrison, who would make up a small but crack regiment in his army known as the ‘Louisbourg Grenadiers’ consisting of thirteen officers and 313 men. Wolfe wanted more; as well as a grenadier company, regiments in North America had recently formed companies of ‘light infantry’. It was hoped that these units would give the British army more flexibility when fighting in the woods of North America. Ideally, they were the regiment’s best marksmen and the quickest witted, agile men who were encouraged to fight in a more open, irregular style than the classic infantryman.
Wolfe begged Whitmore for all of his light infantrymen as well as his grenadiers. ‘We are disappointed of the recruits which were intended to be sent from the West Indies to join us,’ he wrote, ‘and as several regiments are much weaker than they were thought, in England, to be, I must further represent to you that good troops only can make amends for the want of numbers in an undertaking of this sort.’ He reminded him of the strategic situation: ‘upon the success of our attacks in Canada, the security of the whole continent of north America in a great measure depends’.68 Wolfe did not hold Whitmore in high esteem; they had both served as brigadiers in the siege of Louisbourg the year before, and with Whitmore approaching his seventieth birthday, Wolfe had described him as a ‘poor, old, sleepy man’, and claimed that ‘he never was a soldier’.69 It is possible that Wolfe’s difficulty to hide his contempt for people contributed to Whitmore’s refusal. He would not part with any more men than London had specifically ordered. Whitmore had sailed on Quebec as a young man in 1711 and had seen the fleet wrecked on the river and hundreds of men drowned; his duty was to protect Louisbourg not send his finest troops on a dangerous mission to satisfy the thirst for glory of the lanky young Major General. Wolfe informed London, ‘I applied to Mr Whitmore for three companies of light infantry of his garrison…If Brigadier Whitmore did not consent to my proposal it has proceeded from the most scrupulous obedience to orders, believing himself not at liberty to judge and act according to circumstances.’70
Wolfe’s disappointment at Whitmore’s defiance did not interfere with his furious activity. He and his staff were busy planning the next phase of the operation: getting the army on board transports and up the St Lawrence as far as the city of Quebec. Daily orders were issued concerning every aspect of the men’s lives. It was ‘particularly necessary’ that a large stock of shoes was provided, given the difficulty of getting them during the campaign. Axes, picks, shovels, and bill hooks were handed out in proportion to the numbers of men in each regiment. Fraser’s large 78th Regiment with its 1,000 men was given 100 pick axes, Amherst’s smaller 15th was only issued with fifty. Regimental quartermasters, the all-important officers responsible for a unit’s equipment, were to go and claim for ‘one hundred and forty tents’ per regiment from the Fair American transport. Every man was issued thirty-six rounds of ammunition as well as musket balls and spare flints, a vital part of the firing mechanism on their ‘flintlock’ muskets. More powder and balls were stored in casks aboard each transport. It was a reminder that as soon as the fleet left Louisbourg they were in hostile waters. Every attempt was also made to obtain ‘as much fresh provisions as can be procured’; each regiment would send a party daily to the barren ground to the north-east of the town, Pointe de Rochefort, at half an hour intervals to receive their daily supply. On 4 June the Neptune’s log recorded that she ‘received on board six live bullocks’.71 Although eighteenth-century medical knowledge was sketchy they had certainly grasped that fresh meat was better than salted. Meanwhile ‘lines and hooks’ were placed aboard the transports so that they could eat fresh fish on the way up the river. ‘To prevent the spreading of distempers in the transports, the hospital ship will receive any men that may fall ill on the voyage,’ Wolfe ordered. Transports would raise a flag at the mizzen peak, the end of the yard that carried the mizzen sail, to notify the fleet that they had sick men on board who needed hospitalization, while the hospital ships themselves flew a red banner from the top of their foremast. The men were not to be ‘too much crowded’ and each commander was to report on the state of their transport and whether it was fit to proceed. Officers were told that ‘a quantity of spruce beer…would be of great use to their men’. Any men who were already ‘weak and sickly’ were ‘not to embark with their regiments’. But they were not to worry: ‘measures will be taken to bring those men to the army as soon as they are perfectly recovered’.72
By 1 June, Wolfe could be stayed no longer. He was almost a month behind schedule already and he still had to brave the treacherous waters of the St Lawrence before he could even lay his eyes on the enemy. His order for the day stated that ‘the troops land no more’. Flat-bottomed boats, innovations designed specifically for amphibious operations, were ‘to be hoisted in’ and ‘washed every day to prevent leaking’. The ships and crews must now be ready to ‘sail at the first signal,