Montcalm and Wolfe: The Riveting Story of the Heroes of the French & Indian War (90 page)

A L
EGEND
OF
T
ICONDEROGA
.—Mention has been made of the death of Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe. The following family tradition relating to it was told me in 1878 by the late Dean Stanley, to whom I am also indebted for various papers on the subject, including a letter from James Campbell, Esq., the present laird of Inverawe, and great-nephew of the hero of the tale. The same story is told, in an amplified form and with some variations, in the
Legendary Tales of the Highlands
of Sir Thomas Dick Sander. As related by Dean Stanley and approved by Mr. Campbell, it is this:—

The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of the Awe, in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery of the western Highlands. Late one evening, before the middle of the last century, as the laird, Duncan Campbell, sat alone in the old hall, there was a loud knocking at the gate; and, opening it, he saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who in a breathless voice begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. “Swear on your dirk!” said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths of the castle. Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. “Your cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for the murderer!” Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way. The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a large dark room, where at length he fell asleep. Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow voice pronounce the words:
“Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!”
In the morning Campbell went to the hiding-place of the guilty man and told him that he could harbor him no longer. “You have sworn on your dirk!” he replied; and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray his guest, led him to the neighboring mountain, and hid him in a cave.

In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling words:
“Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!”
At break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger was gone. At night, as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before.
“Farewell, Inverawe!”
it said;
“Farewell, till we meet at TICONDEROGA!”

The strange name dwelt in Campbell’s memory. He had joined the Black Watch, or Forty-second Regiment, then employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major; and, a year or two after the war broke out, he went with it to America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the eve of the battle, “This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there yet; this is Fort George.” But in the morning he came to them with haggard looks. “I have seen him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night! This is Ticonderoga! I shall die to-day!” and his prediction was fulfilled.

Such is the tradition. The indisputable facts are that Major Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, his arm shattered by a bullet, was carried to Fort Edward, where, after amputation, he died and was buried. (
Abercromby to Pitt,
19
August,
1758.) The stone that marks his grave may still be seen, with this inscription:
“Here lyes the Body of Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, Esq
^re
., Major to the old Highland Regiment, aged
55
Years, who died the
17
th July,
1758,
of the Wounds he received in the Attack of the Retrenchment of Ticonderoga or Carrillon, on the
8
^th
July,
1758.
”

His son, Lieutenant Alexander Campbell, was severely wounded at the same time, but reached Scotland alive, and died in Glasgow.

Mr. Campbell, the present Inverawe, in the letter mentioned above, says that forty-five years ago he knew an old man whose grandfather was foster-brother to the slain major of the Forty-second, and who told him the following story while carrying a salmon for him to an inn near Inverawe. The old man’s grandfather was sleeping with his son, then a lad, in the same room, but in another bed. This son, father of the narrator, “was awakened,” to borrow the words of Mr. Campbell, “by some unaccustomed sound, and behold there was a bright light in the room, and he saw a figure, in full Highland regimentals, cross over the room and stoop down over his father’s bed and give him a kiss. He was too frightened to speak, but put his head under his coverlet and went to sleep. Once more he was roused in like manner, and saw the same sight. In the morning he spoke to his father about it, who told him
that it was Macdonnochie [
the Gaelic patronymic of the laird of Inverawe
] whom he had seen, and who came to tell him that he had been killed in a great battle in America. Sure enough, said my informant, it was on the very day that the battle of Ticonderoga was fought and the laird was killed.”

It is also said that two ladies of the family of Inverawe saw a battle in the clouds, in which the shadowy forms of Highland warriors were plainly to be descried; and that when the fatal news came from America, it was found that the time of the vision answered exactly to that of the battle in which the head of the family fell.

The legend of Inverawe has within a few years found its way into an English magazine, and it has also been excellently told in the
Atlantic Monthly
of September of the present year, 1884, by C. F. Gordon Cumming. His version differs a little from that given above from the recital of Dean Stanley and the present laird of Inverawe, but the essential points are the same. Mr. Cumming, however, is in error when he says that Duncan Campbell was wounded in the breast, and that he was first buried at Ticonderoga. His burial-place was near Fort Edward, where he died, and where his remains still lie, though not at the same spot, as they were long after removed by a family named Gilchrist, who claimed kinship with the Campbells of Inverawe.

H.

XXV. WOLFE AT QUEBEC

Force of the French and English at the Siege of Quebec

“Les retranchemens que j’avois fait tracer depuis la rivière St. Charles jusqu’au saut Montmorency furent occupés par plus de 14,000 hommes, 200 cavaliers dont je formai un corps aux ordres de M. de la Rochebeaucour, environ 1,000 sauvages Abenakis et des différentes nations du nord des pays d’en haut. M. de Boishébert arriva ensuite avec les Acadiens et sauvages qu’il avoit rassemblés. Je réglai la garnison de Québec à 2,000 hommes.”
Vaudreuil au Ministre,
5
Oct
. 1759.

The commissary Berniers says that the whole force was about fifteen thousand men, besides Indians, which is less than the number given by Vaudreuil.

Bigot says: “Nous avions 13,000 hommes et mille à 1,200 sauvages, sans compter 2,000 hommes de garnison dans la ville.”
Bigot au Ministre,
25
Oct
. 1759.

The Hartwell
Journal du Siége
says: “Il fut décidé qu’on ne laisseroit dans la place que 1,200 hommes, et que tout le reste marcheroit au camp, où l’on comptoit se trouver plus de 15,000 hommes, y compris les sauvages.”

Rigaud, Vaudreuil’s brother, writing from Montreal to Bourlamaque on the 23d of June, says: “Je compte que l’armée campée sous Québec sera de 17,000 hommes bien effectifs, sans les sauvages.” He then gives a list of Indians who have joined the army, or are on the way, amounting to thirteen hundred.

At the end of June Wolfe had about eight thousand six hundred effective soldiers. Of these the ten battalions, commonly mentioned as regiments, supplied six thousand four hundred; detached grenadiers from Louisbourg, three hundred; artillery, three hundred; rangers, four hundred; light infantry, two hundred; marines, one thousand. The complement of the battalions was in some cases seven hundred and in others one thousand (Knox, II. 25); but their actual strength varied from five hundred to eight hundred, except the Highlanders, who mustered eleven hundred, their ranks being more than full. Fraser, in his
Journal of the Siege,
gives a tabular view of the whole. At the end of the campaign Lévis reckons the remaining English troops at about six thousand (
Lévis au Ministre,
10
Nov
. 1759), which answers to the report of General Murray: “The troops will amount to six thousand” (
Murray to Pitt,
12
Oct
. 1759). The precise number is given in the
Return of the State of His Majesty’s Forces left in Garrison at Quebec,
dated 12 Oct. 1759, and signed, Robert Monckton (Public Record Office,
America and West Indies,
XCIX.). This shows the total of rank and file to have been 6,214, which the addition of officers, sergeants, and drummers raises to about seven thousand, besides 171 artillerymen.

I.

XXVII. THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM

One of the most important unpublished documents on Wolfe’s operations against Quebec is the long and elaborate
Journal mémoratif de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable pendant qu’a duré le Siége de la Ville de Québec
(Archives de la Marine). The writer, M. de Foligny, was a naval officer who during the siege commanded one of the principal batteries of the town. The official correspondence of Vaudreuil for 1759 (Archives Nationales) gives the events of the time from his point of view; and various manuscript letters of Bigot, Lévis, Montreuil, and others (Archives de la Marine, Archives de la Guerre) give additional particulars. The letters, generally private and confidential, written to Bourlamaque by Montcalm, Lévis, Vaudreuil, Malartic, Berniers, and others during the siege contain much that is curious and interesting.

Siége de Québec en
1759,
d’après un Manuscrit déposé à la Bibliothêque de Hartwell en Angleterre
. A very valuable diary, by a citizen of Quebec; it was brought from England in 1834 by the Hon. D. B. Viger, and a few copies were printed at Quebec in 1836.
Journal tenu à l’Armée que commandoit feu M. le Marquis de Montcalm
. A minute diary of an officer under Montcalm (printed by the Quebec Historical Society).
Mémoire sur la Campagne de
1759,
par M. de Joannès, Major de Québec
(Archives de la Guerre).
Lettres et Dépêches de Montcalm
(Ibid.). These touch chiefly the antecedents of the siege.
Mémoires sur le Canada depuis
1749
jusqu’à
1760 (Quebec Historical Society).
Journal du Siége de Québec en
1759,
par M. Jean Claude Panet, notaire
(Ibid.). The writer of this diary was in Quebec at the time. Several other journals and letters of persons present at the siege have been printed by the Quebec Historical Society, under the title
Événements de la Guerre en Canada durant les Années
1759
et
1760.
Relation de ce qui s’est passé au Siége de Québec, par une Réligieuse de l’Hôpital Général de Québec
(Quebec Historical Society).
Jugement impartial sur les Opérations militaires de la Campagne, par Mgr. de Pontbriand, Évêque de Québec
(Ibid.).
Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec, from the Journal of a French Officer on board the Chezine Frigate, taken by His Majesty’s Ship Rippon, by Richard Gardiner, Esq., Captain of Marines in the Rippon,
London, 1761.

General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers,
Philadelphia, 1778. This title is misleading, the book being a collection of military orders.
General Orders in Wolfe’s Army
(Quebec Historical Society). This collection is much more full than the foregoing, so far as concerns the campaign of 1759.
Letters of Wolfe
(in Wright’s
Wolfe
),
Despatches of Wolfe, Saunders, Monckton, and Townshend
(in contemporary magazines).
A Short Authentic Account of the Expedition against Quebec, by a Volunteer upon that Expedi
tion,
Quebec, 1872. This valuable diary is ascribed to James Thompson, a volunteer under Wolfe, who died at Quebec in 1830 at the age of ninety-eight, after holding for many years the position of overseer of works in the Engineer Department. Another manuscript, for the most part identical with this, was found a few years ago among old papers in the office of the Royal Engineers at Quebec.
Journal of the Expedition on the River St. Lawrence
. Two entirely distinct diaries bear this name. One is printed in the
New York Mercury
for December, 1759; the other was found among the papers of George Alsopp, secretary to Sir Guy Carleton, who served under Wolfe (Quebec Historical Society). Johnstone,
A Dialogue in Hades
(Ibid.). The Scotch Jacobite, Chevalier Johnstone, as aide-de-camp to Lévis, and afterwards to Montcalm, had great opportunities of acquiring information during the campaign; and the results, though produced in the fanciful form of a dialogue between the ghosts of Wolfe and Montcalm, are of substantial historical value. The
Dialogue
is followed by a plain personal narrative. Fraser,
Journal of the Siege of Quebec
(Ibid.). Fraser was an officer in the Seventy-eighth Highlanders.
Journal of the Siege of Quebec, by a Gentleman in an Eminent Station on the Spot,
Dublin, 1759.
Journal of the Particular Transactions during the Siege of Quebec
(
Notes and Queries,
XX.). The writer was a soldier or non-commissioned officer serving in the light infantry.

Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec and Total Reduction of Canada, by John Johnson, Clerk and Quarter-master Sergeant to the Fifty-eighth Regiment
. A manuscript of 176 pages, written when Johnson was a pensioner at Chelsea (England). The handwriting is exceedingly neat and clear; and the style, though often grandiloquent, is creditable to a writer in his station. This curious production was found among the papers of Thomas McDonough, Esq., formerly British Consul at Boston, and is in possession of his grandson, my relative, George Francis Parkman, Esq., who, by inquiries at the Chelsea Hospital, learned that Johnson was still living in 1802.