The Boston Post Boy and Advertiser, in its issue of Dec. 3, 1759, contains a letter from "an officer of distinction" at Quebec to Messrs. Green and Russell, proprietors of the newspaper. This letter contains the following words: "He [Montcalm] died the next day; and, with a little Improvement, one of our 13-inch Shell-Holes served him for a Grave."
The particulars of his burial are from the Acte Mortuaire du Marquis de Montcalm in the registers of the Church of Notre Dame de Québec, and from that valuable chronicle, Les Ursulines de Québec, composed by the Superior of the convent. A nun of the sisterhood, Mère Aimable Dubé de Saint-Ignace, was, when a child, a witness of the scene, and preserved a vivid memory of it to the age of eighty-one.
[Appendix K.]
Chapter XXIX. Sainte-Foy.
Strength of the French and English at the Battle of Ste.-Foy.
In the Public Record Office (America and West Indies, XCIX.) are preserved the tabular returns of the garrison of Quebec for 1759, 1760, sent by Murray to the War Office. They show the exact condition of each regiment, in all ranks, for every month of the autumn, winter, and spring. The return made out on the 24th of April, four days before the battle, shows that the total number of rank and file, exclusive of non-commissioned officers and drummers, was 6,808, of whom 2,612 were fit for duty in Quebec, and 654 at other places in Canada; that is, at Ste.-Foy, Old Lorette, and the other outposts. This gives a total of 3,266 rank and file fit for duty at or near Quebec; besides which there were between one hundred and two hundred artillerymen, and a company of rangers. This was Murray's whole available force at the time. Of the rest of the 6,808 who appear in the return, 2,299 were invalids at Quebec, and 669 in New York; 538 were on service in Halifax and New York, and 36 were absent on furlough. These figures nearly answer to the condensed statement of Fraser, and confirm the various English statements of the numbers that took part in the battle; namely, 3,140 (Knox), 3,000 (John Johnson), 3,111, and elsewhere, in round numbers, 3,000 (Murray). Lévis, with natural exaggeration, says 4,000. Three or four hundred were left in Quebec to guard the walls when the rest marched out.
I have been thus particular because a Canadian writer, Garneau, says: "Murray sortit de la ville le 28 au matin à la tête de toute la garnison, dont les seules troupes de la ligne comptaient encore 7,714 combattants, non compris les officiers." To prove this, he cites the pay-roll of the garrison; which, in fact, corresponds to the returns of the same date, if non-commissioned officers, drummers, and artillerymen are counted with the rank and file. But Garneau falls into a double error. He assumes, first, that there were no men on the sick list; and secondly, that there were none absent from Quebec; when in reality, as the returns show, considerably more than half were in one or the other of these categories. The pay-rolls were made out at the headquarters of each corps, and always included the entire number of men enlisted in it, whether sick or well, present or absent. On the same fallacious premises Garneau affirms that Wolfe, at the battle on the Plains of Abraham, had eight thousand soldiers, or a little less than double his actual force.
Having stated, as above, that Murray marched out of Quebec with at least 7,714 effective troops, Garneau, not very consistently, goes on to say that he advanced against Lévis with six thousand or seven thousand men; and he adds that the two armies were about equal, because Lévis had left some detachments behind to guard his boats and artillery. The number of the French, after they had all reached the field, was, in truth, about seven thousand; at the beginning of the fight it seems not to have exceeded five thousand. The Relation de la seconde Bataille de Québec says: "Notre petite armée consistoit au moment de l'action en 3,000 hommes de troupes reglées et 2,000 Canadiens ou sauvages." A large number of Canadians came up from Sillery while the affair went on; and as the whole French army, except the detachments mentioned by Garneau, had passed the night at no greater distance from the field than Ste.-Foy and Sillery, the last man must have reached it before the firing was half over.