Battle of the Plains of Abraham

Background

By 1759 the Seven Years' War, known in North America as the French and Indian War, had turned against France. In 1758 the British took Louisbourg and Fort Frontenac, and for 1759 they planned a three-pronged attack on Canada. The thrust up the St Lawrence went to Major-General James Wolfe: about 8,500 men, built around ten battalions of British regular infantry, carried by a fleet of 49 sail.

Wolfe arrived before Quebec in June. The Marquis de Montcalm had massed some 15,000–16,000 men, most of them Canadian militia, behind a line of redoubts running about nine kilometres from the Saint-Charles river to the Montmorency Falls, east of the town. On 31 July Wolfe threw about 3,500 men at the Beauport shore near the Montmorency; the attack failed under militia fire and a thunderstorm, at a cost of around 450 British casualties to some 60 French. Through the summer British raiding parties burned settlements along the river, and British batteries were set up at Pointe-Lévy, across the river from the town, which Montcalm had failed to fortify. Montcalm and the governor, Vaudreuil, were openly at odds over how to defend it.

With autumn approaching, Wolfe's brigadiers proposed landing on the north shore well upstream, between Saint-Augustin and Pointe-aux-Trembles, to cut the French supply line from Batiscan. Wolfe accepted the plan, then after reconnoitring on 8 or 9 September switched the landing to the Anse-au-Foulon, a cove below the cliffs only about three kilometres above Cap Diamant. The site was closer to the town and far riskier, and it produced a battle that Montcalm, as Eccles argues, did not have to fight.

The armies

The two armies on the field were roughly equal in numbers, about 4,400 each by the National Battlefields Commission's count, but they were very different. Wolfe's force was entirely British regulars: the Louisbourg Grenadiers, the 15th, 28th, 35th, 43rd, 47th, 48th, 58th and 78th (Fraser's Highlanders), two battalions of the 60th (Royal Americans) and light infantry. Stacey judges the army small but of high quality. They dragged up only two bronze 6-pounders. Wolfe had ordered the men to load two balls each.

Montcalm's field army combined five regular battalions (La Sarre, Languedoc, Béarn, Guyenne and Royal-Roussillon), troupes de la Marine, the militia of Quebec, Montreal and Trois-Rivières, and First Nations warriors. Wikipedia counts about 400 warriors, many of them Odawa under Charles de Langlade, plus 140 Acadian volunteers, though it says most of these were not engaged. The regular battalions had recently been filled out with untrained militiamen who, by Eccles's account, could not keep the ranks or the discipline of a European line. The militia were poorly armed and had no bayonets. The French had more guns than the British, but their number is unknown.

The largest French force nearby took no part: Bougainville's column of about 3,000, including regulars and cavalry upstream at Cap-Rouge.

The battle

CDB90 records the battle as a single engagement, number 77, PLAINS OF ABRAHAM (QUEBEC), lasting from 10:00 to 10:15. The sources give it from under half an hour to about an hour; the main clash was certainly short.

The landing (night of 12–13 September, about 04:00). Boats carrying the first wave drifted down on the tide from the ships off Cap-Rouge while the fleet made a feint off Beauport. When a sentry challenged, a French-speaking officer answered, and the boats passed. The tide carried them beyond the intended point, so Lieutenant-Colonel William Howe took a party of 24 volunteers, followed by several light companies, straight up the slope. They surprised and drove off Captain Vergor's post of some 40 to 100 militia at about 04:00. Wolfe followed by the easier road up the Coulée Saint-Denis, and by sunrise the army was on the plateau.

Forming up (sunrise to about 10:00). Wolfe drew up a line about a kilometre long and two ranks deep across the Plains, facing the town. From the right: the 35th, bent back en potence on the right flank; then the Louisbourg Grenadiers, 28th, 43rd, 47th, 58th and 78th in the centre; and the 15th and two battalions of the 60th on the left, with the 48th in reserve and the light infantry to the rear. Montcalm, surprised, marched his troops from Beauport and formed on the Buttes-à-Neveu, a rise about 15 metres high between the British and the walls. The armies faced each other by about 09:00. Meanwhile Canadian militia and First Nations sharpshooters worked through the trees and scrub on the British left, where Townshend's regiments fought them for a cluster of houses and a gristmill.

The French attack (about 10:00). Rather than wait for Bougainville, whom he had not even told, Montcalm came down off the Buttes and attacked with about 3,500–4,500 men, his best regulars three deep, others six deep and the weakest regiment in column. The broken ground pushed the advance apart: two groups made for the northern end of the British line and a third for the southern end. The lines lost their order; men halted to fire ragged volleys at long range, and some militiamen dropped to the ground to reload.

The volleys. The British held their fire until the French were 30–40 yards away (the sources differ), then fired a single crashing volley, followed by platoon and battalion fire. The French line broke and ran for the town. Wolfe, already hit in the wrist, was shot in the body near the Louisbourg Grenadiers and died as the French gave way. Townshend took command.

Pursuit and rearguard. The 78th Highlanders went after the fugitives with their swords, but ran into fire from militia still in the woods and from a floating battery on the Saint-Charles. Canadian militia fire from the flanks checked the British pursuit and let the French army reach the town and the bridge over the Saint-Charles, which the militia held. Montcalm was mortally wounded near the Saint-Louis gate during the retreat.

Bougainville (late morning). Bougainville's column finally approached from Cap-Rouge. Townshend turned two battalions from the disordered British troops to face it, and Bougainville withdrew.

Aftermath

The British lost about 658 killed and wounded. French losses are counted very differently, from about 650 to over 1,000 including some 350–370 prisoners. Both commanders died: Wolfe on the field, Montcalm at about 05:00 the next morning. Montcalm was buried in a shell crater beneath the floor of the Ursuline chapel; Wolfe's body was carried aboard HMS Lowestoft and later buried at Greenwich.

The French army was still larger than Wolfe's, but Vaudreuil's officers refused to attack again, and he withdrew the field army west to the Jacques-Cartier river, leaving Ramezay in the town. Quebec capitulated on 18 September. The war in Canada was not over: Lévis, Montcalm's successor, beat the British at Sainte-Foy on 28 April 1760 and besieged the town, until British ships arrived in May. Montreal capitulated on 8 September 1760, and the Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Canada to Britain.

The argument started at once. Lévis defended Montcalm's intentions but blamed his hasty attack; Eccles argues he threw away the chance to trap Wolfe's exposed army. Stacey calls Wolfe a fine regimental officer and a competent battlefield commander, but an indecisive planner at Quebec, whose success owed much to luck, the efficiency of the British army and navy, and French mistakes. The romance began just as fast, above all with Benjamin West's Death of General Wolfe. In Quebec the battle is still sensitive: a re-enactment planned for its 250th anniversary in 2009 was cancelled after opposition and threats of disorder.

Wargaming it

The Plains of Abraham is a small, short, clean battle: two armies of about 4,500 on an open plateau, decided by one volley. That makes it ideal for battalion-level horse-and-musket rules with each battalion a unit, figure scales of around 1:20 to 1:33, and turns of a few minutes, on a table that covers the plateau from the Buttes-à-Neveu to the edge of the woods on the British left. A skirmish game of the night landing, with Howe's volunteers scaling the slope against Vergor's post, makes a good prologue.

The decisive factor is troop quality. The two lines are almost equal in numbers, so rules must make the British line steadier and its first volley deadlier, and make French battalions diluted with militia likely to lose order and fire early. Canadian militia and First Nations warriors need their own skirmish rules: weak in the open line, dangerous in the woods and scrub on the British left and along the line of retreat.

The big what-ifs are all about timing. What if Montcalm waits for Bougainville's 3,000 and attacks from two directions? What if he simply stays on the Buttes-à-Neveu and lets the British attack him, or sit exposed with the cliff at their backs? Or, before the battle starts, what if Vergor's post had been alert? A scenario with Bougainville arriving on a variable clock gives the French player a real choice between attacking now and waiting.

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