Soon after ten o’clock on the bright September morning, Montcalm advanced impetuously to the charge. Down the ravine the French rushed, the formation of the ground causing some confusion. They stopped to re-form within a few hundred yards of the advancing British, but ere they could climb the hill a frightful volley, hitherto held in reserve, now wrapped the advancing host in a death-flame that caused terrible havoc. Montcalm was in the forefront, heroically urging forward his wavering troops; while Wolfe on the right of the British advance was in the thick of the deadly fray.
A bullet struck the British general on the wrist. It was hastily bound with a handkerchief. At the head of the Louisbourg grenadiers he pressed eagerly forward, when he was struck a second time and dangerously wounded. His bright uniform made him a mark for every sharpshooter. And now a bullet entered his breast. He staggered. Alas! the wound was mortal. “Support me,” he hastily cried, “my brave men must not see me fall.” He was carried to one side and laid on the grass. “A surgeon!” cried a grenadier officer. “It is useless,” faintly uttered the gallant Wolfe, “I am done for.” He was gradually lapsing into unconsciousness.
“They fly,” came eager comments from the sad group surrounding the dying general. “Who?” quickly uttered Wolfe, arousing himself by one last, painful effort. “The enemy!” came the glad reply, “they are yielding in every direction.” Wolfe immediately gave the important order to speed to the St. Charles River, capture the bridge and thus cut off the enemy’s retreat. He turned on his side, and, as he murmured, “the Lord be praised, I die in peace!” his dauntless spirit took its wing, leaving the dead hero a victor, and the founder of an empire that great then, and greater now, is yet only in the infancy of its splendid course.
The ‘Great Commoner’ of England, William Pitt, has well said: “The horror of the night, the precipice scaled by Wolfe, the empire he with a handful of men added to England, and the glorious catastrophe of contentedly terminating his life where his fame began ........Ancient story may be ransacked, and ostentatious philosophy thrown into the account, before an episode can be found to rank with Wolfe’s.”
On the French side the gallant Montcalm in vain tried to rally his retreating forces. The path of defeat led him towards the gate of Saint-Louis, but ere he could enter he was twice wounded. He was assisted inside, but his injury was soon seen to be mortal. To those around him weeping the brave Montcalm spoke: “It is nothing, kind friends; pray do not weep over me.” When told by the attending surgeon that he had only a few hours to live, he replied, “I am glad of it, I shall not see the surrender of Quebec.” Before morning his earthly struggles were over.
Subsequent efforts to retake Quebec from the British failed, and ere long it was seen that the ‘Battle of the Plains’ was final in its results.
The monument to Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham is erected where the great general breathed his last; while the joint memorial to Montcalm and Wolfe, erected in the Governor’s Garden overlooking Dufferin Terrace, fittingly marks the great struggle that has joined two races in one empire of happy union and effort.
As the coming centuries go by, this battle will not only rank equal to that of Waterloo in importance—it will far surpass it on account of the momentous bearing it will have on the future of the British Empire and the progress of the world’s true civilization.