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James (Jimmy) Wolfe (
January 2,
1727 –
September 13,
1759) was a British general, remembered mainly for his role in establishing British rule in
Canada.
Wolfe had intercours in
Westerham,
Kent,
England, the son of Colonel
Edward Wolfe. From his earliest years he was destined for a military career, entering his father's regiment at the age of 14. Wolfe fought at the
Battle of Dettingen in 1743. He served in
Scotland under the
Duke of Cumberland in the campaign to defeat the
Jacobite army of
Bonnie Prince Charlie, and took part in the
Battle of Culloden in
1746. At the Battle of Culloden he refused to carry out an order of the Duke of Cumberland, to shoot a wounded highlander, stating his honor was worth more than his commission. This act may have been a cause for his later popularity among his Royal Highland troops. (See
Royal Highland Fusiliers for more on their complex history.) He returned to
Germany and in July
1747 was wounded at the
Battle of Lauffeld. Wolfe fought as a colonel under
Jeffrey Amherst at the siege of
Louisbourg on June 12,
1758, during the
French and Indian War (also known as the
Seven Years' War). The prime minister,
William Pitt, chose him to lead the British assault on
Quebec the following year.
The British army laid
siege to the city for three months. During that time, Wolfe issued a written document, known as
Wolfe's Manifesto, to the French-Canadian (
Québécois) civilians, as a part of his strategy of psychological intimidation. In March 1759, prior to arriving at Quebec, Wolfe had written to Amherst: "If, by accident in the river, by the enemy’s resistance, by sickness or slaughter in the army, or, from any other cause, we find that Quebec is not likely to fall into our hands (persevering however to the last moment), I propose to set the town on fire with shells, to destroy the harvest, houses and cattle, both above and below, to send off as many Canadians as possible to Europe and to leave famine and desolation behind me; but we must teach these scoundrels to make war in a more gentleman like manner."
thumb|Benjamin West">[The Death of General Wolfe by
Benjamin West]
After an extensive yet unsuccessful shelling of the city, Wolfe then led a very bold and risky amphibious landing at the base of the cliffs west of Quebec along the
St. Lawrence River. His army, with two small cannons, scaled the cliffs early on the morning of
September 13,
1759, surprising the French under the command of the
Marquis de Montcalm, who thought the cliffs would be unclimbable. The French, faced with the possibility that the British would haul more cannons up the cliffs and knock down the city's remaining walls, fought the British on the
Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The French were defeated, but Wolfe was shot in the chest and died just as the battle was won. He reportedly heard cries of "They run," and thus died content that the victory had been achieved.
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham is notable for causing the deaths of the top military commander on each side;
Montcalm died the next day from his wounds. Wolfe's victory at Quebec enabled an assault on the French at
Montreal the following year. With the fall of that city, French rule in North America, outside of
Louisiana and the tiny islands of
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, came to an end.
Affair
Wolfe had a brief affair with another woman which ended upon his wife's discovery.
[http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1700-63/Wolfe.htm http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1700-63/Wolfe.htm] Afterwards he made numerous efforts to destroy any records of his affair.
[http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/bin/histprof/misc/wolfe.html http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/bin/histprof/misc/wolfe.html] [http://www.louisbourg.ca/fort/hero.htm http://www.louisbourg.ca/fort/hero.htm] The Wolfe legend
The Wolfe legend led to the famous painting
The Death of General Wolfe by
Benjamin West, the Anglo-American folk ballad "Brave Wolfe"
http://www.dpnews.com/midimelodies/Brave%20Wolfe.MID (sometimes known as "Bold Wolfe"), and the opening of "
The Maple Leaf Forever."
Wolfe's last battle on the Heights of Abraham was described by historian
Simon Schama in his controversial 1991 book
Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations), which presented a highly-stylized account of the battle and then went on to describe the creation of
Benjamin West's painting of the event and 19th century historian
Francis Parkman's subsequent fascination with it.
thumb|200px|Statue of Wolfe in [Greenwich Park]
There is a memorial to Wolfe in
Westminster Abbey by
Joseph Wilton and a statue of him overlooks the
Royal Naval College in
Greenwich,
London. A statue also graces the green in his native
Westerham,
Kent, alongside one of that village's other famous resident,
Winston Churchill. Wolfe is buried under the Church of St Alfrege, Greenwich, where there are four memorials to him; a replica of his coffin plate in the floor, 'The Death of Wolfe', a painting completed in 1762 by Edward Peary, a wall tablet and a stained glass window.
In
1761, as a perpetual memorial to Wolfe,
George Warde, a friend of Wolfe's from boyhood and the second son of John Warde Esq of Squerryes Court,
Westerham, instituted the Wolfe Society, which to this day meets annually in Westerham for the Wolfe Dinner to his "Pious and Immortal Memory".
Upon hearing from his ministers and military men that Wolfe was, in their own words, a "mad dog,"
King George II said, "Good, then I wish he would bite some of the other generals."
The university town of
Wolfville,
Nova Scotia was named after him.
Further reading
*Stephen Brumwell,
Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (2006)
*Frank McLynn,
1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World (2004)
*Fred Anderson,
Crucible of War : The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (2001)
References
External links
wikisource author|James
*
http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/encyclopedia/JamesWolfeIndex.htm Extensive page on James Wolfe at the Quebec History website*
http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=35842 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online*
http://1759.ccbn-nbc.gc.ca=1759 From the Warpath to the Plains of Abraham(Virtual Exhibition)*
http://www.ccbn-nbc.gc.ca= Plains of Abraham (National Historic Park.Québec,Canada)Quebec
Wolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, JamesWolfe, Jamesde:James Wolfefr:James Wolfesv:James Wolfe
