User:Mathieugp/drafts/Siege of Quebec (1759)

The Siege of Quebec of 1759 was an important episode in the War of the Conquest of Canada. Quebec, the capital city of New France, was besieged from June 26 to its capitulation on December 18, 1759.

Background

British planning

William Pitt rose to power in Great Britain in June 1757 and soon after formed a ministerial coalition with the Duke of Newcastle. As the Secretary of State responsible for British America, Pitt revived a plan to conquer the French colonies in North America, with the French province of Canada as the principal target. The military campaign of 1758 was a partial success for the British: Admiral Edward Boscawen and Major General Jeffrey Amherst captured Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island on July 26, Brigadier General John Forbes captured Fort Duquesne in the Ohio valley, but the main operation of the campaign was checked. The 4,000 regular troops commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm defeated a British army of 16,000 directed against them by General James Abercromby on July 8 in the Battle of Carillon.

William Pitt had wanted the British fleet to push to Quebec after the victory at Louisbourg, but the Navy command judged this impractical because the season was advanced, and the St. Lawrence would be soon freeze and be inaccessible to shipping. As a result the expedition against Quebec was postponed until 1759.

For the 1759 campaign General Amherst, who was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in America after his successful win at Louisbourg, was ordered to advance toward Montreal via Lake Champlain and, if possible, to push toward Quebec. As part of this campaign, Brigadier General John Prideaux was to attack Fort Niagara, located at the junction of the Niagara river and Lake Ontario. Meanwhile, the British fleet, commanded by vice-admiral Charles Saunders was to advance in the St. Lawrence river up to Quebec where he would drop a land force that would begin a siege of the town. This operation was entrusted to James Wolfe, who was promoted for the occasion to the rank of Major General. These campaigns basically forced the French to defend on two fronts, Niagara to the west and Quebec to the east.

French planning

In December 1758, New France's Governor-General Vaudreuil and French General Montcalm dispatched Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and commissary Doreil to Versailles to request support. Bougainville conveyed to the ministers primarily Montcalm's view of the situation, but in the end, Versailles satisfied the demands of neither Montcalm nor Vaudreuil.

Montcalm thought the situation was desperate. Although he wanted to receive significant reinforcements of soldiers and ammunition, he did not count on it, knowing that the Royal Navy was in a position to intercept any ships that France could send him. He consequently proposed to make a diversion by attacking Virginia or the Carolinas in order to foment a slave rebellion. This would force the British to send troops to the south, reducing the size of the army attacking Canada. In a separate memoir, he proposed what Vaudreuil saw as the dismemberment of his own troops and his militia. Montcalm believed the situation required the incorporation of the best Canadians in the French regiments to increase their size. Moreover, Montcalm demanded to be recalled, citing health reasons and personal debts in Europe.

On his part, Vaudreuil demanded the help of the French royal navy directly against the enemy in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence or in a diversion against the British colonies. He supported the recall of Montcalm and proposed François-Gaston de Lévis, Montcalm's second in command, with whom Vaudreuil was in very good terms, to replace Montcalm at the head of the French army.

In Versailles, it was decided to send four ships of munitions and military supplies and to let private merchants deal with the transport of food. In terms of soldiers, about 400 replacement soldiers, 40 artillerymen, and some engineers were sent across the Atlantic. Versailles agreed to the reorganization of the forces which involved placing Canadians in the French ranks. Montcalm was not recalled, and was instead promoted to the rank of lieutenant général des armées, mainly in recognition of his victory at Carillon. Vaudreuil was ordered to consult with Montcalm for all matters pertaining to military operations and defence and he was asked to communicate to Montcalm all correspondence he received from the French ministers. As a consolation to this apparent loss of authority, Vaudreuil was awarded the Grand-Croix of the Order of Saint Louis.

The British had intended a blockade of the St. Lawrence, however it failed to prevent the French fleet from reaching Quebec. Admiral Philip Durell was stuck in Halifax until the end of April because of ice, and unfavorable winds prevented him from setting sail before May 5. His fleet of ten war ships plus three boats transporting 600 soldiers reached Le Bic only on May 21. The French flotilla, conducted by frigate lieutenant Jacques Kanon, had already passed it on May 9. Some 16 French ships reached Quebec on May 18, with additional convoys—including the Chézine, carrying Bougainville—arriving in the following days. The support sent by France was largely inadequate to address the colony's needs, but it brought joy and hope to its people.

Siege

Preparations

The French command learned of the expedition against Quebec via the St. Lawrence at the beginning of May 1759. Montcalm, who was in Montreal, asked Vaudreuil to let him leave immediately for Quebec to see to its defence, following a plan he had started working on in the autumn of 1757. He arrived at Quebec on the night of May 22 and started to direct the works needed to protect the shore. As soon as May 24, some 300 sailors were mobilized to dig entrenchments on the right or western shore of the Saint-Charles River from its mouth north about three miles. Two armed hulks were sunk in the Saint-Charles's mouth to block it and three bridges were built across it. Beginning on June 4, an entrenchment line was also dug from the Montmorency Falls all the way to Saint-Charles, on some 5 miles. The French battalions that had wintered in Montreal and Quebec were moved to various camps east of Quebec, behind these fortifications. Vaudreuil ordered the mobilization of all the militia in the country's three districts and the evacuation of the inhabited regions neighbouring Quebec: the Île d'Orléans, the South Shore and the Beauport Shore. The inhabitants of the surrounding areas arrived at Quebec with their children, their valuable possession and even their cattle. Men were incorporated in their respective parish militia. It was the law of the country that all able-bodied men between 16 and 60 years serve in the militia, but among them were also elders of 70 years old and boys as young as 15. Some 15,000 combatants, including 150 Acadians who had survived deportation, showed up for the defence of a country whose population was estimated at 60,000 colonists. Montcalm observed that half of these militia were elders and children. The plan of evacuation of the countryside around Quebec could not be completed in time, so many inhabitants hid in the woods with whatever weapons they had.

On the British side, the expedition against Quebec started on June 4, when the fleet commanded by Charles Saunders left the port of Louisbourg and sailed up the St. Lawrence toward Quebec. The fleet was composed of about one quarter of the royal war navy, plus merchant transports. There were 49 war ships with 13,500 seamen, as well as 119 merchant ships, operated by 4,500 sailors and transporting a disembarkation corp of 8,500 regular soldiers .

Wolfe's entire army at the beginning of the campaign consisted in three brigades commanded by Robert Monckton (3,430 troops), Charles Townshend (1,861 troops), and James Murray (2,122 troops); three companies of grenadiers under colonel Alexander Murray (326 troops), three companies of light infantry under lieutenant colonel William Howe (200 troops), six companies of Rangers under Major George Scott (590 troops), 300 Provincial Pioneers, 330 soldiers of the Royal Artillery under lieutenant colonel George Williamson, and 163 pieces of artillery.

Before Quebec

On June 26, the British armada reached the Île d'Orléans, before Quebec, without great difficulty. French navigation maps, as well as information extracted from captured French sailors, allowed the British pilots to confidently push forward and reach their target without any loss. The British navy, which had never penetrated the river, was cautious and methodical, sounding the river as it progressed, verifying the accuracy of the information obtain from the enemy.

• this should say which units disembarked

On June 27, General Wolfe had a part of his soldiers disembark at St-Laurent, on the south side of Île d'Orléans. Wolfe and a detachment of light infantry immediately marched six miles westward where could see the long defence line the French had erected from the Montmorency river all the way to Quebec further west.

The same day, Wolfe released a terrorist manifesto addressed to the Canadian population. Copies of the manifesto were posted on the doors of area churches over the next few days.

On June 28, at 22:00, the French army attempted an attack on the British fleet anchored at the Île d'Orléans with fire ships. Apparently, due to a lack of a proper plan, the merchants piloting the ships were lit too soon to do any real damage. Approximately one million French livres went up in smoke in this ineffectual attack.

The next night, Wolfe landed light troops in the Beaumont parish on the South Shore. They were followed on the morning after (June 30) by four battalions of Robert Monckton's brigade. The Canadian militia of captain de Léry could not prevent the landing and retreated.

Bombardment of the town

Monckton was ordered to erect batteries at Pointe-Lévy, near Pointe-aux-Pères, directly across the river from Quebec. On June 30, Quebec closed its gates.

On the night of July 12, at about 21:00, the batteries opened fire and shells kept raining on the town until noon the day after. The town was bombarded practically every night afterwards, sometimes in broad day light as well, for two months. From the beginning of the bombing to around noon the day after, some 300 bombs penetrated the ramparts of Quebec. The main purpose of the bombing being to terrorize the population, the British cannons and mortars targeted the residences of both the upper and lower towns rather than the military batteries in the lower town. After twelve days, about 15,000 shells had been fired at Quebec.

The French engineer Nicolas Sarrebource de Pontleroy, who had stated in a memoir dated January 12, 1759 that batteries constructed on the Pointe-Lévy could only reach the lower town, was manifestly wrong. The Ursulines convent, located in the centre of the upper town, was damaged during the bombing of the first night. The sisters had to seek refuge in the Hôpital Général at St-Charles, in the north-west of town. (The convent survived the bombardment, and is one of the few buildings of that time that is still standing in the city.)

The worst damage did not come from the bombs themselves, but rather as a consequence of the British batteries throwing a great number of carcasses, or incendiary projectiles. Major fires burst out in the Upper Town during the nights of July 16 and 22, and in the lower town on August 8. The town of Quebec lost its cathedral in the fire on July 22. The most important fire raged from August 8 to 9, in which some 152 houses plus the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church were destroyed. By the morning after that blaze, about half the town had been destroyed, including 180 houses in its wealthiest neighbourhoods. A British dispatch of August 10 affirmed that three times the ammunition used during the whole siege of Louisboug had already been expended."

The French batteries of the lower town hardly answered these bombardments due to the shortage of powder.

Battle of Beauport

Further information: Battle of Beauport

One month after appearing before Quebec, General Wolfe decided to attempt an attack on the French defences on the north shore. His plan was to land a large force, which would seize a particular redoubt located in front of the French entrenchments in order to force Montcalm's soldiers out of their positions. Once on site, he realized his mistake: the redoubt he had identified was in fact closer to the enemy line than he was able to evaluate from the Île d'Orléans. Consequently, the French were able to fire directly on the redoubt without leaving their entrenchments. Wolfe could have backed out, but he persisted in the attack, which was entirely unsuccessful, and cost him more than 400 casualties. Wolfe withdrew the landing force back to Île d'Orléans.

Reprisal expeditions

Goreham's expeditions

After the Beauport defeat, General Wolfe ordered the fortification of the British camp on the north shore. He decided to keep his men busy while meditating a new plan for the next attack.

On August 3, he ordered Brigadier James Murray to make an attempt at the ammunitions and supplies of Trois-Rivières and to divide and distract the enemy by attempting multiple landings west of Quebec. This mission kept him busy until August 25.

On August 4, a little over a month after releasing his first manifesto to the inhabitants of Canada, and six days before the deadline set by the second one issued in July, Wolfe decided to execute his menace of reprisal and ordered the destruction "habitations & settlements in the Bay of St. Paul;". He chose Joseph Goreham, captain of a company of Rogers' Rangers, to lead a reprisal expedition against the local population. In a letter to General Monckton, Wolfe proposed to provide Goreham with 200 to 220 Rangers, but in the end only 150 Rangers were assigned to the expedition. On August 6, in another letter to Monckton, Wolfe discussed the plan of burning "all the Houses from the Village of St. Joachim to Montmorency River", and, if Goreham came back in time, he proposed to grant him the reinforcements needed to accomplish the destruction of the houses between the Chaudière and Etchemin Rivers.

Goreham and his men left on August 6 for the village of Baie-Saint-Paul, which they burned on August 9. The expedition then proceeded toward La Malbaie, some ten leagues further east and ravaged all the settlements on the way. Crossing to the South Shore, Goreham's Rangers destroyed much of the Sainte-Anne and St-Roan parishes, and then returned to camp on August 15. On that day, Wolfe wrote to Monckton: "All the Houses & Barns between the Etchmin River & la Chaudiere may be burn't whenever any opportunity offers.". After a brief stay in camp, Goreham's men left on another expedition. On August 23, they arrived at Montmorency where they began the destruction of all houses on the way to Saint-Joachim. Some settlements on the Île d'Orléans were also set on fire the same day.

The destruction of villages did not happen without some resistance. The Rangers met with several groups of Canadians and Indians who forcefully defended their properties and those of their neighbours and parents. To overcome this resistance Goreham's force was reinforced by 300 soldiers of the 43th Regiment under Captain Alexander Montgomery. This extra force was put to use against a group of Canadians led by Mr. de Portneuf, priest of Sainte-Anne. The British used a cannon to force de Portneuf and his men out of houses in which they had barricaded themselves. De Portneuf and some thirty men were captured, killed and scalped.

Scott's expedition

On August 22, Wolfe wrote "I intend to burn all the country from Camarasca to the Point of Levy." This new expedition, commanded by Major George Scott is better known to historians than that of Goreham. A report submitted by Scott to his superior Monckton was preserved and provides a detailed daily account of the expedition's movements. On September 1, Scott and and a detachment of soldiers under his command embarked at Pointe-Lévy for the Île Madame.

On September 3, they landed on Île Madame and on the afternoon of the 6th they crossed the river. The following day Scott and his men anchored in front of Kamouraska at 21:00. On September 8 at 13:00, Scott sent a small company of men ashore to scout the area. The patrol brought back a prisoner who was interrogated. On August 9 at 2:30, Scott landed his company some three miles east of the church at Kamouraska. The landing of all soldiers was complete at around 14:00. They burned down 56 houses that day and 109 more the next day.

On the 11th, Scott marched his men from Kamouraska to the Ouelle river, where they burned 121 houses. On the 12th they burned 55 houses and stole cattle at Cap au Diable, located at the mouth of the Ouelle river. On the 13th the troop burned 216 houses as it moved up the eastern shore of the Ouelle. On the morning of the 14th Scott's troop burned 151 houses on the road from Rivière-Ouelle to Sainte-Anne and 90 more between Sainte-Anne and Saint-Roch, plus a sloop and a goélette.

On the 19th Scott wrote in his report that he had marched a total of 52 miles from Kamouraska back to the British camp on Île d'Orléans, and burned "998 good Buildings, two Sloops, two Schooners, Ten Shalloops several Batteaus and small Craft, took 15 Prisoners (Six of them Women and five of them Children), kill'd 5 of the Enemy, had One Regular wounded, two of the Rangers kill'd and four more of them wounded."

In mid-September, the British army reported the destruction of "more than 1,400 farms" in the countryside around Quebec and on the shores of the St. Lawrence. The Boston News-Letter, reporting on the subject on December 6, predicted that the enemy would take half a century to recover from the devastation.

A new plan of attack

While his men bombarded the town of Quebec and burned and plundered the surrounding countryside, General Wolfe was focused on coming up with a new plan of attack. He produced several proposals but was unable to reach a decision on how to proceed. His health condition deteriorated in the middle of August, and by the 19th a strong fever forced him to remain in bed. He was getting better by August 25 and was on his way to recovery according to officer Knox.

On August 27 he called a war council. In the memoir he prepared for his command staff he proposed three plans, all involving an attack on the Beauport defence line. He was convinced of one thing: if the French were attacked and defeated, they would have to surrender since the town would be out of provisions, according to reports coming from French deserters.

The three brigadiers (Monckton, Townshend and Murray) met with vice-admiral Charles Saunders on August 28, and in a document dated August 29, concluded that all three plans proposed by Wolfe were bad and that the army should attack on the left (west) side of Quebec. They favoured landing near Pointe-aux-Trembles (present-day Neuville) and building entrenchments nearby in the most convenient place. Wolfe accepted their judgement and made preparations to execute this plan until September 8. On that day he changed his mind and without council decided to make the landing at Anse-au-Foulon instead.

By September 3 the British army had completely evacuated the Montmorency camp on the north shore. Wolfe left Carleton at the head of the Royal Americans to defend the camp on Île d'Orléans, and Burton at the head of the 48th Regiment at Pointe-Lévis, while he oversaw the movement of most of the army toward the Etchemin river, on the south shore to the west of Quebec. The military equipment was transported by boat at night, passing before Quebec, and the soldiers were marched along the St. Lawrence. Everything was put in place for a massive landing of troops on the north side of the St. Lawrence on the night of September 9. On the morning of September 7, Wolfe and his brigadiers met on board the Sutherland to prepare the battle plan. That night, Saunders performed ship movements before Beauport to give the impression that a landing was coming on to the east.

The landing site was set between Pointe-aux-Trembles and Saint-Augustin, where for about 5 miles (8.0 km) the shore is lower than elsewhere. The British army was to feint landing at Pointe-aux-Trembles while the real landing was being done further south, closer to Saint-Augustin. The operation was called off at 1:30 in the morning on the 9th due to rain. Some 1,500 soldiers who were already aboard crowded transports were disembarked at Saint-Nicholas.

Battle of the Plains of Abraham

Further information: Battle of the Plains of Abraham

British troops began landing at 4 am on September 13, just east of the Anse-aux-Foulons. By 8 am, around 4,600 soldiers were positioned in lines of battle on the ground chosen by Wolfe. At 10:00 am, Montcalm took the decision to charge the British troops, believing that by not attacking immediately, they would have time to entrench.

The French army failed to repel the British army, who were able to keep their ground. The two armies suffered about the same number of losses: 658 on the British side and 644 on the French side. Both commanding generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, died of wounds received in the battle. Their woundings occurred about the same time, during the French retreat with the British soldiers on their heels. Wolfe died not long after, while Montcalm died early the next morning.

The most immediate consequence of the battle of the morning of September 13 was the French decision to leave the Beauport camp. This decision meant that the town of Quebec was abandoned to the sole protection of its garrison. In a war council held that afternoon, Vaudreuil argued for a counterattack the next morning, but was opposed by all of his officers (except for intendant Bigot), who had gone through the whole battle and believed it was a bad idea. They instead suggested abandoning Beauport completely to retreat to the Jacques-Cartier river, 40 kilometres (25 mi) west of Quebec. Vaudreuil had to resign himself to the judgment of his officers, because he believed that had he ordered the attack against their unanimous opinion, he would have exposed himself to losing "both the battle and the colony." At 9:00 pm, the French troops left Beauport by the Charlesbourg road, leaving behind their tents and transporting a minimum of rations and munitions.

Capitulation

Further information: Capitulation of Quebec (1759)

Montcalm's pessimism made him write that he did not dare to "flatter himself that he could stop the first push of the enemy" against Quebec. Consequently he had most of the food supplies stored at Trois-Rivières and kept in Quebec only enough to feed the people and the army for six weeks. Anticipating the worst, he drafted a capitulation for the whole country and sent a copy of it to de Ramezay.

On September 18, the articles of capitulation of Quebec were signed in the name of the British and French crowns by Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas-Roch de Ramezay, lieutenant du roi, admiral Charles Saunders, and general George Townshend. The government of Canada and the French army then retreated to Montreal.

Consequences

The capitulation because of food shortage, just when food was on its way, and with a significant part of the French army intact, was a severe blow to Canada and France. The terms of the capitulation included the surrender of the town of Quebec, which had mostly been destroyed, and the installation of a British military government under James Murray whose control extended over the entire district of Quebec. The British army occupied Quebec while the French army moved beyond the border separating the districts of Quebec and Trois-Rivières.

• how much of the French army was left? (previous section needs summary of battle, and particularly French military movements before and immediately after, that contributed in the army's preservation; also, who takes command after Montcalm dies?)

The naval siege of Quebec in the summer of 1759 caused unprecedented disorder in French Canada. The British invasion of the St. Lawrence and the landing of its troops in the heart of the most developed and densely populated part of Canada lead to the death of thousands of people.

• how many deaths were nominally non-combatants? due to hunger or other deprivation? other causes?

References

Further information: Bibliography of the Siege of Quebec of 1759

• Frégault, Guy (2009). La Guerre de la Conquête, Montréal: Fides, 514 p. ISBN 978-2-7621-2989-2.
• MacLeod, Peter (2008). La vérité sur la bataille des plaines d'Abraham, Montréal: Éditions de l'Homme, 491 p. ISBN 978-2-7619-2575-4.
• Lacoursière, Jacques (1995). Histoire populaire du Québec. Tome I, Sillery: Septentrion, 482 p. ISBN 2-89446-050-4. (preview)
• Deschênes, Gaston (1988). L'Année des Anglais: la Côte-du-Sud à l'heure de la Conquête, Sillery: Septentrion, 180 p. ISBN 2921114003. (preview)
• Stacey, Charles Perry (1959). Quebec, 1759: The Siege and The Battle, Toronto: MacMillan, 210 p.