General James Wolfe

Photo from Freemason's Grand Lodge of BC and Yukon

Though he was on the winning side, General James Wolfe, like his rival general,  the Marquis de Montcalm, died on the Plains of Abraham in 1759. The long struggle between British and French culminated in this decisive engagement at Quebec.

As is the case with nearly every war, the outcome of this battle cast long shadows on the political and cultural landscape that followed. It is well-known that the fall of Quebec, once the capital of the newly evolving nation, was a dark moment for French Canadians.

What is less talked about is the divided loyalties of the troops used by Wolfe to achieve a decisive victory for the British side.

Referring to this aspect of the history, the Scottish descendant and Canlit writer extraordinaire, Alistair MacLeod OC, titled his great sweeping novel of 20th century Canada No Great Mischief (1999), a phrase used by Wolfe in which he refers to his own Scots Highland soldiers as hardy and intrepid, but untrustworthy.

These men, ironically, were the first the very British Wolfe sent to scale the cliffs from the river to the Plains of Abraham, while their general below judged that it would be "no great mischief if they fall."

At the decisive battle for North America, Wolfe's army was smaller than Montcalm's by half. As mentioned in The Seven Years' War website, shortly before he fought the French at Quebec, Wolfe wrote to his mother that while Montcalm was at the head of many bad soldiers (many members of untrained militia), he, Wolfe, led a small number of good ones.

As the campaign dragged on, Wolfe was suffering from dysentery. Possibly worse, he did not get on with his military superiors, Viscount George Townshend and James Murray. According to a letter written by his aide-de-camp Mr. Bell in the summer, Wolfe also had some trouble from Colonel Guy Carleton, even though Wolfe had a 'particular regard' for him (ibid).

In the end, the day was won when Wolfe succeeded in capturing Quebec by employing a combination of surprise and subterfuge. He chose the battle site and predicted accurately how the French general would react to his tactics. As noted earlier, when the battle came, the general died in the field,. He was 32.