Friday, July 31, 2009
Louisbourg slavery tour in the news
CBC took up Louisbourg National Historic Park's project to animate and interpret the history of slavery and black culture in the eighteenth-century town in Nova Scotia. Here's their news item. Radio One's "As It Happens" talked to my old colleague Ken Donovan about it, but it does not seem to be among their podcast offerings here.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #33
[Okay, so we are future-posting the siege a little again]
Saturday, August 4, 1759. General Jeffrey Amherst occupies Fort Frederic or Crown Point, a little north of Ticonderoga. He has just learned of the capture of Fort Niagara, but he is unaware of Wolfe’s progress and rather expects him to fail. He halt his advance, starts consolidating his forces, and digs in for the winter.
Knox, meanwhile, puts Montmorency firmly behind him and indulges in hopeful speculation:
Saturday, August 4, 1759. General Jeffrey Amherst occupies Fort Frederic or Crown Point, a little north of Ticonderoga. He has just learned of the capture of Fort Niagara, but he is unaware of Wolfe’s progress and rather expects him to fail. He halt his advance, starts consolidating his forces, and digs in for the winter.
Knox, meanwhile, puts Montmorency firmly behind him and indulges in hopeful speculation:
Brigadier Murray, with a strong detachment, are under orders to proceed on board of Admiral Holmes's division to make a diversion above the town, with a view to divide the enemy's attention. We are inclined to hope the General's schemes may still be productive of some great event ; the harvest must be reaped, or a famine is inevitable: and, if the Canadians should disperse for that purpose, and General Amherst should be enabled to advance farther into the province, and thereby compel Monsieur Montcalm to draw off some of his forces hence to the side of Montreal, we may yet have it in our power to give a satisfactory account of the capital of Canada.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #32
Friday, August 3, 1759. Captain Knox: "The intention of yesterday's flag of truce was to acquaint the General that they had given decent burial to all the men who were killed on the 31st, and to some of the wounded who are since dead: that a Captain and several others who are in their hands shall be taken good care of, in order to be exchanged, when they arc recovered.
"Part of the town was in flames early this morning, but was soon extinguished. We continue to bombard and cannonade it vigorously, though we have seldom any return from the enemy. Ships are arrived with stores and provisions for our fleet and army."
"Part of the town was in flames early this morning, but was soon extinguished. We continue to bombard and cannonade it vigorously, though we have seldom any return from the enemy. Ships are arrived with stores and provisions for our fleet and army."
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #31
Thursday, August 2, 1759 Now that every plan for getting at the enemy seems to have been proven fruitless, there is a lull in the British high command. The siege has lasted a month, but Quebec defies them.
The supply clerk: “The enemy goes on constantly bombarding and destroying the city. God will that all these calamities will soon be over.”
The supply clerk: “The enemy goes on constantly bombarding and destroying the city. God will that all these calamities will soon be over.”
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #30
Wednesday, August 1, 1759. “The loss is not great,” writes Wolfe. Another day he will call yesterday's action “foolish” but today he tells 210 grenadiers it is their own damn fault that the French are now busy burying them where they died. Two days earlier, he had been determined to bring the French out to fight rather than trying to storm their entrenchments. Now he declares that when he did suddenly decide to storm those very entrenchments, it was the grenadiers’ “impetuous, irregular, and unsoldierlike” action that caused them to fail him.
The defenders, meanwhile, digest their victory without much celebration. Montcalm had largely left the defence at Montmorency to Lévis, his second in command, and Lévis describes the calm and methodical steps the French forces took yesterday. It was Canadian militiamen in the entrenchments who faced – and slaughtered -- the British grenadiers who charged their entrenchments. The officers of the French regular troops have long concerned about the ability of militia to serve alongside trained troops. But, as a French officer later tells Knox, the militia “behaved with so much steadiness throughout the whole cannonading, and, upon the approach of our troops up the precipice, fired with such great regularity that they merited the highest applause and confidence from their superiors.”
Today the supply clerk estimates the British losses rather accurately at 400 to 500 (Levis thought 1200) “and if they had been braver they would only have lost more.” He rather wishes there had been the general engagement (also craved by Wolfe), as he fears the French will be starved into surrender if the siege goes on
Foligné, the French sea officer, thinks the British were fortunate that the thunderstorm covered their retreat. He understands that only the blinding rain prevented the French defenders from pursuing them down the hill and across the beaches.
Montcalm, however, has always wanted to avoid contact with the enemy as much as possible. Despite the substantial victory he has won, he remains sober and realistic. Today he writes to Bourlamaque, commanding on the Richelieu-Lake Champlain front, “You see, monsieur, that our affair is undoubtedly only a small prelude to something more important, which we are now waiting for.
The defenders, meanwhile, digest their victory without much celebration. Montcalm had largely left the defence at Montmorency to Lévis, his second in command, and Lévis describes the calm and methodical steps the French forces took yesterday. It was Canadian militiamen in the entrenchments who faced – and slaughtered -- the British grenadiers who charged their entrenchments. The officers of the French regular troops have long concerned about the ability of militia to serve alongside trained troops. But, as a French officer later tells Knox, the militia “behaved with so much steadiness throughout the whole cannonading, and, upon the approach of our troops up the precipice, fired with such great regularity that they merited the highest applause and confidence from their superiors.”
Today the supply clerk estimates the British losses rather accurately at 400 to 500 (Levis thought 1200) “and if they had been braver they would only have lost more.” He rather wishes there had been the general engagement (also craved by Wolfe), as he fears the French will be starved into surrender if the siege goes on
Foligné, the French sea officer, thinks the British were fortunate that the thunderstorm covered their retreat. He understands that only the blinding rain prevented the French defenders from pursuing them down the hill and across the beaches.
Montcalm, however, has always wanted to avoid contact with the enemy as much as possible. Despite the substantial victory he has won, he remains sober and realistic. Today he writes to Bourlamaque, commanding on the Richelieu-Lake Champlain front, “You see, monsieur, that our affair is undoubtedly only a small prelude to something more important, which we are now waiting for.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #29
Tuesday, July 31, 1759 Another hot, sultry day, but there is a breeze; the ships can move. Wolfe launches his attack on the redoubt west of Montmorency Falls. Things go wrong immediately. Around low tide, near mid-day, two armed transports, Russell and Three Sisters, are deliberately run aground on the sandbanks adjacent to the redoubt. They are to provide close-range fire support for the attackers. But the distances are greater than Wolfe had guessed. Though the French on the heights can pour heavy fire on the helpless ships, the ships will be unable to assist the infantry.
Wolfe himself boards the Russell under heavy fire. He sees his whole plan is based on a misunderstanding. His objective has been an advanced redoubt close to the beach and outside the French defence line on the hilltop, but he now sees it lies much closer to the French entrenchments and gun batteries that he had judged. Even if the British seize the redoubt, they will be unable to hold it under French fire. Montcalm will have no reason to send troops down to engage the British around the redoubt – the whole point of Wolfe’s plan. He will just pound it and them to pieces.
Wolfe recasts his plan on the fly. Seeing the French in rapid motion behind their lines, Wolfe hopes this is confusion. He decides on the thing he had resolved to avoid: a frontal attack: past the redoubt, up the steep banks, and into the dug-in French lines. The grenadiers originally intended to seize and hold the redoubt are given this mission. Monckton’s troops will come in boats from Pointe de Levy to support them. So will Townshend’s troops, who will cross the Montmorency ford from their encampment east of it.
The grenadiers’ boats, delayed by shoals in the river, finally come ashore after 5 p.m. The French expediently abandon the redoubt and retreat to their entrenchments up the bank. But Monckton's and Townshend's forces are not yet there. Captain Knox describes what follows:
The troops to the eastward of the Fall were in motion to join and support the attack; but the grenadiers, impatient to acquire glory, would not wait for any reinforcements, but ran up the hill, and made many efforts, though not with the greatest regularity, to gain the summit, which they found less practicable than had been expected: in this situation they received a general discharge of musketry from the enemy's breastworks, which was continued without any return; our brave fellows nobly reserving their fire, until they could reach the top of the precipice, which was inconceivably steep; to persevere any longer they found now to little purpose; their ardour was checked by the repeated heavy fire of the enemy. As if conscious of their mistake, the natural consequence of their impetuosity, they retired in disorder (in spite of the most unparalleled valour and good conduct on the part of their officers) and took shelter in the redoubt and battery on the beach, where Brigadier Monckton's corps were now landed and formed; those under Brigadiers Townshend and Murray being also at hand, ready to sustain their friends.The retreat of the grenadiers coincides with what Knox describes as “the dreadfullest thunder-storm and fall of rain that can be conceived … the violence of the storm exceeded any description I can attempt to give of it.” Driving rain silences the flint-sparked black-powder muskets on both sides; if the defenders cannot fire, is one more desperate bayonet charge into the French lines possible? No, the streaming, slippery slope is impassible and the grenadiers have taken enough punishment.
Meanwhile, the rising tide will soon flood the ford. If they linger, the British may be trapped on the beach. Wolfe orders the redoubt abandoned and the Russell and Three Sisters burned where they lie. The brigadiers bring their men off in fairly good order, some in boats, some back across the ford. Knox counts the cost:
The loss of our forces this day, killed, wounded, and missing, including all ranks, amounted to four hundred and forty-three; among whom were two captains and two lieutenants slain on the spot; one colonel, six captains, nineteen lieutenants, and three ensigns wounded.
Map: from Google images, originally published in Stacey's Quebec 1759.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #28
Monday, July 30, 1759. From all the activity among the British troops, Captain Knox sees that something is afoot. "It is said," he writes, "that all the transports' boats are to be manned, in order to make a feint, and thereby divide the enemy's attention, while the army are to endeavour to penetrate into the French camp, between Beauport and the Fall."
But he also writes, "Sultry weather for several days past, wind variable and scant." During the day, the scant winds become a dead calm. The ships cannot move. Wolfe’s attack on the Montmorency redoubt, planned for low tide today, must be postponed.
Despite the postponement, Wolfe steels himself to resist the pressure of his officers, who want the whole plan of attack reconsidered. "Dislike of the general officers and others to this business," he writes, "but nothing better proposed by them.” The attack will proceed tomorrow.
Across the lines, Intendant Bigot, senior administrative officer of New France, asks the royal storekeepers for a statement of the gunpowder that remains, noting that the troops have been complaining about the lack of fire from Quebec’s batteries. The troops “have that in common with many people,” writes the diarist called the supply clerk. “But me, I’ll leave that up to the commanders, feeling that they must know – or at least should know – the right measures to take.”
He continues, “This morning we sent out a detachment of two hundred men to escort the supplies that we have sent to Batiscan for. I greatly fear that we will run short, although we have cut back, supplying only a pound of bread a day."
"At five p.m.," he also notes, "two soldiers of the colonial troops were hanged for having stolen brandy from Sieur Soupirant’s cellar yesterday.”
The sea officer Foligné, commanding a gun battery in the town, writes of a morale-building tour of the defences:
But he also writes, "Sultry weather for several days past, wind variable and scant." During the day, the scant winds become a dead calm. The ships cannot move. Wolfe’s attack on the Montmorency redoubt, planned for low tide today, must be postponed.
Despite the postponement, Wolfe steels himself to resist the pressure of his officers, who want the whole plan of attack reconsidered. "Dislike of the general officers and others to this business," he writes, "but nothing better proposed by them.” The attack will proceed tomorrow.
Across the lines, Intendant Bigot, senior administrative officer of New France, asks the royal storekeepers for a statement of the gunpowder that remains, noting that the troops have been complaining about the lack of fire from Quebec’s batteries. The troops “have that in common with many people,” writes the diarist called the supply clerk. “But me, I’ll leave that up to the commanders, feeling that they must know – or at least should know – the right measures to take.”
He continues, “This morning we sent out a detachment of two hundred men to escort the supplies that we have sent to Batiscan for. I greatly fear that we will run short, although we have cut back, supplying only a pound of bread a day."
"At five p.m.," he also notes, "two soldiers of the colonial troops were hanged for having stolen brandy from Sieur Soupirant’s cellar yesterday.”
The sea officer Foligné, commanding a gun battery in the town, writes of a morale-building tour of the defences:
M. le Marquis de Montcalm, accompanied by M. de Bougainville and several officers of the various battalions, came into the city and toured the ramparts. There was vigorous firing throughout their visit. After having seen everything and given their orders, they left the city to go to the hospital. They wanted to visit all the rooms to visit the wounded, to whom they distributed wine before returning to their encampments.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Don’t bogart that paradigm
If you really experienced the sixties, you are not supposed to remember them. Fortunately, we have historians.
Carleton University in Ottawa will hosts a symposium on sixties history on November 14, 2009, featuring as keynote speaker Dimitry Anastakis, editor of The Sixties: Passion, Politics and Style. The organizers sum up the issues in language that should be saved for some future conference on early 21st century scholarly discourse: “A proliferation of conferences, anthologies and surveys of the period have prompted an interrogation of the parameters and meaning of the once-paradigmatic decade.”
They welcome participants. “This symposium aims to bring together senior doctoral students, recent graduates and junior faculty members working on topics related to the 1960s experience in Canada broadly defined…. The symposium organizers welcome 200-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations to be submitted electronically by September 15, 2009 (sixties[dot]symposium[at]gmail[dot]com)."
(h/t to H-Canada)
Carleton University in Ottawa will hosts a symposium on sixties history on November 14, 2009, featuring as keynote speaker Dimitry Anastakis, editor of The Sixties: Passion, Politics and Style. The organizers sum up the issues in language that should be saved for some future conference on early 21st century scholarly discourse: “A proliferation of conferences, anthologies and surveys of the period have prompted an interrogation of the parameters and meaning of the once-paradigmatic decade.”
They welcome participants. “This symposium aims to bring together senior doctoral students, recent graduates and junior faculty members working on topics related to the 1960s experience in Canada broadly defined…. The symposium organizers welcome 200-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations to be submitted electronically by September 15, 2009 (sixties[dot]symposium[at]gmail[dot]com)."
(h/t to H-Canada)
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #27
Sunday July 29, 1759: Wolfe grows ever more avid for a general engagement in which he is sure his fresh and well-trained troops can defeat Montcalm’s battered forces. Today he writes to General Monckton: “I take it to be better that the Marquis should attack a firm corps of ours with superiority of numbers than that we should attack his whole army entrenched.”
Wolfe has been looking at a redoubt the French have built on the Beauport shore close to where the Montmorency river reaches the St. Lawrence. He conceives a plan: send in his troops at low tide to seize and reinforce the redoubt, then wait for Montcalm’s forces to flood down to attack it, bringing on the general engagement. “If the Marquis gives Burton and I only two hours, we shall knock his battalions about most furiously.”
Wolfe begins distributing orders to the troops at Point Levy, on the Ile d’Orleans, and at Montmorency, and to the navy: prepare to hit the beach, attack the redoubt, hold it against a French counter-attack, then flood over the French entrenchments. Tomorrow is the day.
Inside the town, the supply clerk laments the damage already done:
Wolfe has been looking at a redoubt the French have built on the Beauport shore close to where the Montmorency river reaches the St. Lawrence. He conceives a plan: send in his troops at low tide to seize and reinforce the redoubt, then wait for Montcalm’s forces to flood down to attack it, bringing on the general engagement. “If the Marquis gives Burton and I only two hours, we shall knock his battalions about most furiously.”
Wolfe begins distributing orders to the troops at Point Levy, on the Ile d’Orleans, and at Montmorency, and to the navy: prepare to hit the beach, attack the redoubt, hold it against a French counter-attack, then flood over the French entrenchments. Tomorrow is the day.
Inside the town, the supply clerk laments the damage already done:
The enemy fired cannon and mortars at us tonight just like last night, though more with cannon balls than mortar shells. Three quarters of the buildings are damaged or destroyed.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
1712? Quick, what happened in 1712?
More Intelligent Life, some kind of online playground for Economist writers, has been running a debate on the most important year in history. I'm linking here to the guy who makes the case for 1712. From there you could seek out the other nominations. They have a poll, too, and you can vote for your own favourite year.
Maybe when we get the siege done, we should take up the most important year in Canadian history. Course I wrote a book called 1867, but I could consider other years too.
Maybe when we get the siege done, we should take up the most important year in Canadian history. Course I wrote a book called 1867, but I could consider other years too.
Fort Walsh for August 2
May be the dog days of summertime lassitude for most of Canadian history (our friends at HistoryWire haven't posted for a month), but the Rural History and Culture Association of Saskatchewan continues to make hay. Next event in their NWMP Trail summer is August 2 at Fort Walsh.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #26
Saturday, July 28, 1759: James Wolfe abandons his ideas about a direct assault on the quays of Quebec. “Our allies of the navy have examined the place and think it formidably entrenched within," he writes. Another option becomes untenable, and the season races on.
Captain Knox, the British diarist/historian, is collecting stories from the night before, of how the British sailors responded to the threat to the fleet from the French fireships:
Captain Knox, the British diarist/historian, is collecting stories from the night before, of how the British sailors responded to the threat to the fleet from the French fireships:
Our gallant seamen, with their usual expertness, grappled them before they got down above a third part of the basin, towed them safe to shore, and left them at anchor, continually repeating, “All's well.” A remarkable expression from some of these intrepid souls to their comrades on this occasion I must not omit, on account of its singular uncouthness, viz. “Damn, Jack, did'st thee ever take hell in tow before?”The French diarist known as the supply clerk notes consequence from that attack for the town and its people:
It seems that the enemy was annoyed by last night’s attempt [the fire ships] and they revenged themselves on the town, having fired between midnight and six in the morning more than 200 bombs. Gregoire had a leg cut off by an exploding bomb and his brother was lightly injured.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Last of the Tour
Kudos to the National Post/CanWest for some serious coverage of Ryder Hesjedal, the Canadian competitor in the Tour. The Globe never got interested, and CBC national sports seemed completely unaware of any Canadian participation, though local radio sports took an interest.
Hesjedal was the third fastest rider on his Garmin-Slipstream team, behind 4th overall Bradley Wiggins and 8th overall Christian Vandevelde. The three fastest finishes for each team determine overall team standings, and Ryder's contribution gave Garmin second place overall in the team competition. Hesjedal placed 49th overall -- in the top third of the field -- but it's his contribution to the team more than his individual standing that has confirmed his place on the Garmin team for the next two years.
Okay, eleven months of Tour de France withdrawal, we promise.
Don't say anything about the war; Russia forms Historical Truth Commission
Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has established a Historical Truth Commission to ensure that only the official version of the Second World War is heard in Russia.
Historian of Russia Robert Service responds well. "History is all about argument. There is no absolute historical truth about anything big in history."
Historian of Russia Robert Service responds well. "History is all about argument. There is no absolute historical truth about anything big in history."
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #25
Friday, July 27, 1759: James Gibson, a New England observer of the siege:
At eleven at night I was hugely alarmed with a most dreadful sight. The enemy has linked together 100 fire stages, which spread full 400 yards in length, and as the evening was dark, tow’d ‘em undiscovered toward the centre of the fleet and set fire to ‘em. We had intelligence that some such infernal scheme was intended, and therefore were prepared against it, and with our own boats we grappled and led them through the whole fleet without losing or even hurting a man…. Thus sir, scarce a day passes without its dangers…. We find ourselves outnumbered and we fear out-generalled.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #24
Thursday, July 26, 1759. The real British army in North America, y’see, is the one commanded by Major General Jeffrey Amherst. This army has been working its methodical way up the Hudson River-Lake Champlain-Richelieu Valley invasion corridor toward Montreal. Compared to it, Wolfe’s bold thrust at Quebec is secondary, and the opposing forces on the western frontier are little more than armed mobs chasing each other around the countryside (a German general staff officer’s famous, probably invented, description of the campaigns of the American Civil War, but more accurate here).
Amherst is methodical. His predecessor got his head handed to him by Montcalm at Carillon/Ticonderoga in August 1758, and Amherst is prepared to sacrifice speed rather than take a chance on anything similar. He’s not in the business of glorious risky ventures. July is nearly over, and he has just returned to the siege of Ticonderoga a few days ago.
The French have no intention of letting their shrinking armies be trapped here. Only a token force remains at the fort they call Carillon. Today they spike the guns, blow up the powder magazine, and retreat northward. So Amherst now has Ticonderoga -- but he has no information on how Wolfe is doing. If Wolfe has to withdraw from Quebec, he reasons, Montcalm will come down the Richelieu like an avenging whirlwind. Amherst determines to hold what he has rather than advancing to ground he may not be able to keep. So he sets to reinforcing Ticonderoga. He will not see Montreal for a year.
Wolfe, meanwhile, has given up on the coast west of Quebec again. Today he scouts along the Montmorency river, and doesn’t much like it. “The opposite bank was entrenched, and so steep and so woody, that it was to no purpose to attempt a passage there.”
Amherst is methodical. His predecessor got his head handed to him by Montcalm at Carillon/Ticonderoga in August 1758, and Amherst is prepared to sacrifice speed rather than take a chance on anything similar. He’s not in the business of glorious risky ventures. July is nearly over, and he has just returned to the siege of Ticonderoga a few days ago.
The French have no intention of letting their shrinking armies be trapped here. Only a token force remains at the fort they call Carillon. Today they spike the guns, blow up the powder magazine, and retreat northward. So Amherst now has Ticonderoga -- but he has no information on how Wolfe is doing. If Wolfe has to withdraw from Quebec, he reasons, Montcalm will come down the Richelieu like an avenging whirlwind. Amherst determines to hold what he has rather than advancing to ground he may not be able to keep. So he sets to reinforcing Ticonderoga. He will not see Montreal for a year.
Wolfe, meanwhile, has given up on the coast west of Quebec again. Today he scouts along the Montmorency river, and doesn’t much like it. “The opposite bank was entrenched, and so steep and so woody, that it was to no purpose to attempt a passage there.”
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #23
Wednesday July 25, 1759. Fort Niagara was already hard pressed before yesterday’s disaster. The British siege trenches have pushed to within 80 yards of the fort’s stone walls. Gun batteries across the river (where Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, now stands) pound the fort from the rear. The British commander Prideaux stepped in front of a mortar on July 20 and had his head taken off, but the attack has never slowed.
Today, when Pouchot, the French commander, receives details of Lignery’s disaster, he negotiates the surrender of Fort Niagara to William Johnson. He and his men become prisoners of war.
Instead of fighting to hold on to Fort Pitt, the British now command Lake Ontario – barely 200 km from Montreal.
Today, when Pouchot, the French commander, receives details of Lignery’s disaster, he negotiates the surrender of Fort Niagara to William Johnson. He and his men become prisoners of war.
Instead of fighting to hold on to Fort Pitt, the British now command Lake Ontario – barely 200 km from Montreal.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #22
[The siege continues, but the blogger takes long weekends. Here are a few days of the siege live-blogged in advance, so to speak. Have a cold one.]
Tuesday July 24, 1759. The French plan for 1759 includes a return to Fort Pitt, the former Fort Duquesne (the site of Pittsburgh), taken by the British late in 1758 after three hard years of failure. If the French can retake Pitt and threaten Virginia and all the expansion-minded American colonies, they will force the British to divert substantial forces back into the west -- and maybe convince some of the First Nations they are still a good bet as allies.
But the lynchpin of French movement in the west is Fort Niagara, and the British, with new assistance from the Six Nations, suddenly laid siege to Fort Niagara back on July 6. Pouchot, the commander there, sent runners to recall the veteran frontier fighter Captain Marchand de Lignery post-haste back from Lake Erie to relieve Fort Niagara.
Lignery and his force, perhaps 1600 men, have crossed back across Lake Erie and paddled down the Niagara River, "like a floating island, so black was the river with boats and canoes.” At Belle-Famille, Lignery’s force begins the portage around Niagara Falls today – and is ambushed by the British.
Most of Lignery’s native allies (the largest part of his force) have withdrawn. They are unwilling to fight their Six Nations relatives, who have abandoned the French. Lignery and his troops make a desperate charge on the British breastwork. They are slaughtered. New France’s most experienced frontier fighters die in droves. Only about a hundred survive to be taken prisoner, including Lignery, who will soon die of his wounds. There is no French force left for an Ohio campaign.
Tuesday July 24, 1759. The French plan for 1759 includes a return to Fort Pitt, the former Fort Duquesne (the site of Pittsburgh), taken by the British late in 1758 after three hard years of failure. If the French can retake Pitt and threaten Virginia and all the expansion-minded American colonies, they will force the British to divert substantial forces back into the west -- and maybe convince some of the First Nations they are still a good bet as allies.
But the lynchpin of French movement in the west is Fort Niagara, and the British, with new assistance from the Six Nations, suddenly laid siege to Fort Niagara back on July 6. Pouchot, the commander there, sent runners to recall the veteran frontier fighter Captain Marchand de Lignery post-haste back from Lake Erie to relieve Fort Niagara.
Lignery and his force, perhaps 1600 men, have crossed back across Lake Erie and paddled down the Niagara River, "like a floating island, so black was the river with boats and canoes.” At Belle-Famille, Lignery’s force begins the portage around Niagara Falls today – and is ambushed by the British.
Most of Lignery’s native allies (the largest part of his force) have withdrawn. They are unwilling to fight their Six Nations relatives, who have abandoned the French. Lignery and his troops make a desperate charge on the British breastwork. They are slaughtered. New France’s most experienced frontier fighters die in droves. Only about a hundred survive to be taken prisoner, including Lignery, who will soon die of his wounds. There is no French force left for an Ohio campaign.
How Irish are the Newfoundlanders?
The Bond Papers looks into a mysterious, maybe-on, maybe-off, historical project and the curious politics and financing that may underpin it.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #21
Monday, July 23, 1759: Foligné, the French sea officer detached to command a gun battery in the town, describes the latest damage from the British siege guns:
During the night the enemy, after a violent barrage, set fire to the upper town in the neighbourhood of Mme. La Gue. A north-west wind carried the flames to the cathedral after having burned thirteen houses. For the rest of the night the enemy aimed a great many bombs, fireballs, and mortars toward the fire. Happily the fire was contained at the houses destroyed in the first outbreak, and that saved the bishop’s house and the seminary. We had to remove the powder and bombs from our gun battery there, which could have been ignited by the cinders which fell around it in abundance.
At the first light of dawn, a frigate of 26 guns and a gunboat headed for the narrows hoping to get through under cover of the fire, but they were spotted from the ramparts and we gave them such a barrage that they headed back to anchor among the fleet.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #20
The British naval map shows most of the locations that keep turning up in the daily events. The western tip of the Ile d'Orleans is at right. Montmorency Falls just above it at top right -- note the shallows that impede British ship movements there. The fortified Beauport shore, where Montcalm holds the bulk of his troops, runs between Montmorency and the city. Point Levy can be seen at bottom centre -- note the close range of the artillery duels between the batteries there and those of the city. The ships in the river at far left mark the British naval presence upriver, close to the eventual landing site.
Sunday, July 22, 1759: Yesterday Wolfe used his new command of the river above Quebec to dispatch Guy Carleton (today a junior officer, come the 1770s a governor of Canada) and a raiding party to land at Pointe-aux-Trembles about 30 k west of Quebec. The raiders briefly skirmished with militia and First Nations fighters and soon retreat to the boats. They took with them a couple of hundred prisoners, not troops but civilians, many of them women and children who had retreated upriver to escape the shelling of Quebec City -- and also "Sieurs Frichet, LaCaze and Lainyé" who, according to the supply clerk's journal, had gone to visit their mistresses there.
Today the prisoners or hostages are returned to the city under a flag of truce. The clerk continues:
General “Hwolf” received the ladies very politely. He strongly advised them not to return to the city, which would be reduced to ashes in a few days. He sent his compliments to M. Bigot and assured him that as soon as we are taken they will treat him with all possible consideration. They also had much praise for M. de Montcalm, saying he was a good general but that M. de Vaudreuil lets them do whatever they wanted to. They expressed the hope of making themselves masters of Canada. That is all I learned from these prisoners who were very glad to be back although they had been well treated.[Map from Claude LaFrenière's blog]
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Come and gone in an electronic blink? History of the listserve
A writers' listserve I used to participate in was recently closed down and repackaged as a web forum. The H-Canada historians listserv seems deathly quiet these days (tho' indeed it always cools down markedly in the academic long vacation). Now the idea is about that the email-based listserv is history itself.
Makin on Songer on the Supreme Court
Today's Globe & Mail has legal reporter Kirk Makin on the findings in Donald Songer's new book on the Supreme Court of Canada -- featured here some weeks ago.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #19
Saturday, July 21, 1759. A vignette and an opinion from the Journal du siège, the work of an anonymous Quebecker employed at the royal storehouse and therefore nicely tagged by Peter MacLeod as the "supply clerk's journal":
Sanchagrin, a corporal in the colonial troops who was captured last May by the squadron of Admiral Durrell escaped on the 18th from aboard the ship Prince of Orange. He swam for shore and with the greatest difficulty he reached shore at Cap Brulé, and from there he came here.And a little later, just to show it is not only the British who are having doubts about their leaders:
The conduct of our generals and the inaction of our troops and militia truly makes me despair of the safety of this poor colony. The enemy have landed first at the Ile d’Orleans, then at Point Levy, at the falls, at Pointe-aux Trembles and at Deschambault without anyone doing anything serious to stop them. I don’t know now where they plan to go, but in truth I think that they will go wherever they want.
English for Historians
Stephen Pyne shares his experience of trying to help history grad students learn to write.
I hear rumours all the time of history profs thinking about the trade market for history books. If your discipline is so specialized that even your colleagues are not interested in what you write, where else can you go for some love (and fame and even a few dollars?)
The August-September Beaver is just out with my brief profile of China specialist Timothy Brook of UBC, recently the author of the international success Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. As he says of history students, "we don't give seminars on how to craft readable historical writing. It's just not what we do, and I think it's too bad." The whole story is in the print edition only for the moment -- get to the magazine rack.
I'm more ambivalent than you might think. For sure, being able to write clear and fluent prose should be one of the hallmarks of an educated person, and that kind of mastery should be among the goals of a liberal education. It's the undergrads who should learn to write in school, and that so many do not is one of the university's great failings.
But specialist academic scholars, it seems to me, should have the freedom to write b books that are difficult, technical, hard-to-read -- and important. (It's all the difficult, technical, hard-to-read unimportant books that are the real problem in scholarship, not the dearth of pop histories.)
I hear rumours all the time of history profs thinking about the trade market for history books. If your discipline is so specialized that even your colleagues are not interested in what you write, where else can you go for some love (and fame and even a few dollars?)
The August-September Beaver is just out with my brief profile of China specialist Timothy Brook of UBC, recently the author of the international success Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. As he says of history students, "we don't give seminars on how to craft readable historical writing. It's just not what we do, and I think it's too bad." The whole story is in the print edition only for the moment -- get to the magazine rack.
I'm more ambivalent than you might think. For sure, being able to write clear and fluent prose should be one of the hallmarks of an educated person, and that kind of mastery should be among the goals of a liberal education. It's the undergrads who should learn to write in school, and that so many do not is one of the university's great failings.
But specialist academic scholars, it seems to me, should have the freedom to write b books that are difficult, technical, hard-to-read -- and important. (It's all the difficult, technical, hard-to-read unimportant books that are the real problem in scholarship, not the dearth of pop histories.)
Monday, July 20, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec+250 #18
Friday, July 20, 1759. Wolfe, now that he has naval ships above the town, abandons all thought of a landing on the heavily defended Beauport-Montmorency shore, and sends Robert Monckton, one of his brigadiers, a letter outlining an attack he wants made that very day just west of the city.
James Gibson, a well-connected New Englander with the British forces, writes this day:
It is of consequence that we get to a rising ground over the village where the road leading to Quebec runs... If we can take four or five good posts, and keep 'em till our friends arrive, it may bring on a very decisive affair.A few hours later, Wolfe sends Monckton a second note:
Particular circumstances make it necessary to delay our attempt and to keep it a secret... You will countermand the embarcation and the march for a day or two.This is another plan that will never be implemented. C. P. Stacey argues that the reason was the 600-man detachment -- including 200 cavalry -- Montcalm had dispatched upriver to shadow the British ships. Dumas, their commander, has quickly placed a small gun batterey at the cove where Wolfe is thinking of landing. It pounds the warship Sutherland hard enough that its commander retreats farther upriver. That is enough to convince Wolfe he cannot surprise the French defenders here.
James Gibson, a well-connected New Englander with the British forces, writes this day:
Within the space of five hours we received at the general's request three different orders of consequence, which were contradicted immediately after their reception -- which has been the constant practice of the general ever since we have been here to the no small amazement of everyone who has the liberty of thinking. Every step he takes his wholly his own; I'm told he asks no one's opinion and wants no advice.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #17
Thursday, July 19, 1759: What happened to the attack at Beauport-Montmorency that Wolfe was planning a couple of days ago? The movement of British ships upriver is what happened. By today, Wolfe is back to planning an attack above the town, probably near the village of St-Michel, near Sillery. Montcalm moves forces above Quebec to shadow the British vessels, but Wolfe continues to think a landing may soon be possible, and he cancels his plans downriver. Meanwhile Knox reports something none of the French seem to mention:
The enemy erected a gibbet on the grand battery above the lower town, and hanged two sentinels, we suppofe, for not being more alert on their posts and neglecting to apprise them of the first appearance of our ships advancing to pass the garrison, into the upper river.
History of Canada at the Tour de France
Perhaps not all of you have managed to follow the Tour everyday, so you will be glad to know Canadian Ryder Hesjedal remains in the top third of the riders competing.
The Tour website has a very detailed History section. I discovered in it the quite remarkable Tour history of Steve Bauer, the most successful Canadian in international professional bike-racing ever, fourth overall in the Tour of 1988, and fourteen yellow jersey stages overall (plus an Olympic silver medal). Canadian Alex Stieda also wore yellow once -- first North American ever -- and Gordon Fraser, who rode but did not finish the Tour in 1997, completes the alltime Canadian contingent.
Though he has suffered in several crashes and has not yet been able to stand out, Ryder Hesjedal, who stood in the top thirty overall last year, may yet have a lot to contribute to the Garmin-Slipstream team. They are about to hit the Alps and we look for good things.
The Tour website has a very detailed History section. I discovered in it the quite remarkable Tour history of Steve Bauer, the most successful Canadian in international professional bike-racing ever, fourth overall in the Tour of 1988, and fourteen yellow jersey stages overall (plus an Olympic silver medal). Canadian Alex Stieda also wore yellow once -- first North American ever -- and Gordon Fraser, who rode but did not finish the Tour in 1997, completes the alltime Canadian contingent.
Though he has suffered in several crashes and has not yet been able to stand out, Ryder Hesjedal, who stood in the top thirty overall last year, may yet have a lot to contribute to the Garmin-Slipstream team. They are about to hit the Alps and we look for good things.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #16
Wednesday, July 18, 1759: Captain Knox has a warning for future readers of his journal of the campaign:
Instead something more consequential occurs. Late tonight, the British naval commanders send the Sutherland, 50 guns, the frigates Diana and Squirrel, two armed sloops and two transports, up the river past the town of Quebec in the narrowest part of the river. They emerge successfully above Quebec almost entirely undamaged. Knox:
Many new projects are talked of; but, I believe, from no other motive than to amuse the enemy, in order that false intelligence may be circulated throughout their camps should any of our soldiers desert: a practice common in all armies, and the reader in the course of this work will find many stratagems and reports recited, which were never intended to be put in execution, and, therefore, are not to be looked upon as inventions of the Author of this Journal.He then reports a French deserter has revealed that 1500 men will attack the English gunbatteries tonight.
Instead something more consequential occurs. Late tonight, the British naval commanders send the Sutherland, 50 guns, the frigates Diana and Squirrel, two armed sloops and two transports, up the river past the town of Quebec in the narrowest part of the river. They emerge successfully above Quebec almost entirely undamaged. Knox:
The enemy did not fire above twenty-eight guns all last night, which makes us conjecture, that the failing of these ships into the upper river was a great surprife to them; General Wolfe, who was then at our batteries, gave the town a moft incessant fire, while this small fleet were passing.Control of the river and freedom of movement above the town....
Friday, July 17, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #15
Tuesday, July 17, 1759: Hopes and dreams of the besieged. The diarist Foligné reports what he’s heard of news brought in by three English prisoners captured during skirmishing around the Montmorency River lines.
They report that General Wolfe and nine or ten thousand men will soon try to seize the quays where the artillery is currently being mounted, that they have withdraw all their regular troops from Pointe Levy except four or five hundred to cover the gun battery there, that they have cut back the rations and sent three ships to Louisbourg for resupply, and that they are waiting day by day for General Amherst to join them.Pretty much none of this is true, though any common soldier in the British forces might have believed most of it, except about the rations, which seems to be pure wish-fulfillment on the French side.
Invented traditions in Newfoundland: the case of the PWG
The always pungent Newfoundlanderblogger The Sir Robert Bond Papers tees off against the "PWG," the pink-white-green tricolour flag promoted by enthusiasts for the imaginary Republic of Newfoundland.
The “republic” is entirely the invention of a local guy looking to make a buck on a few tee-shirts. And he’s made it too what with the popularity of the shirts among the latter-day corner boys.In Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Carolyn Lambert has a detailed history of the vexed origins of the PWG.
The flag – in all its pink, white and green gloriousness – belonged to a St. John’s crowd but over its whole history it never gained widespread popularity through what became the Dominion of Newfoundland.
It was certainly never adopted as the official flag of the country.
In other words, at the very best, the flag is a townie artefact but as the flag of a republic? You can’t be the flag of something that never existed anyways.
I still like the official flag of Newfoundland, designed by Christopher Pratt and surely one of the most elegant flag designs in the world -- too Canadian for some, I guess.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
American History: it's all about the Bible?
Historians make history; other people just live, they say. 'Cept in Texas, where it seems to be wing-nut Christianists who get to draft the curriculum, according to the Wall Street Journal.
(h/t Edge of the American West)
(h/t Edge of the American West)
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #14
Monday July 16: From the anonymous Journal du Siège (whose author, it would seem, may have been employed at the royal storehouse):
The enemy bombarded us hotly all night. Pouliot, an habitant from Cap Rouge, was killed by a bomb in front of the cathedral. Sieurs Dufour and Brassard were slightly wounded by another that fell between the two of them on the steps of a doorway where they stood.
Around five in the morning a bomb grazed the corner of the gable-end of Sieur Robin's house; he got away with the loss of a few boards that it carried away.
We abandoned the royal storehouse as no longer tenable and we camped out in the meadow of M. Hyché. MM. the controller and the treasurer came there too.
At eleven in the morning a firebomb fell on the house of Chevalier on the main hill. It caught fire at once and spread to the houses of Treyvoux, the widow Chenevert, big Girard, Madame Boishébert, Sieur Cordeneau, and finally that of Sieur Dacier, where we cut off the flames.
As the conflagration took hold, the enemy launched a very violent shelling, but we responded from our batteries so vigorously that the enemy could only fire two firebombs between noon to seven in the evening. Several of the enemy’s guns were dismounted and their batteries shattered. We fired at least 700 or 800 shots.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Hayday on Ricci on Pierre-Elliott Trudeau
A momentary truce in the Novelist-Historian wars: At Pample the Moose, Trudeau-era historian Matthew Hayday gives a notably sympathetic and positive review to the short biography of Trudeau by novelist Nino Ricci.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #13
Sunday, July 15. What if you gave a siege and nobody came? General Montcalm would not complain. His strategy throughout the Quebec campaign is to sit tight behind his lines, preserve his forces and supplies, and hope that the enemy never manages to launch an assault. By mid-July things are going about as well as can be expected from that front. Montcalm hopes things will long remain just as dull.
Wolfe needs some aggro. He has deadlines; he has to win or go home in humiliation, and winter comes early around here. He keeps looking for a crack in Quebec's defences: he looks upstream, beyond the city, but the navy has not yet dared move through the narrows between Quebec and Lévy. He looks to the downriver end of Montcalm's lines, at Montmorency Falls, but the Montmorency river and the cliffs along the north shore of the St. Lawrence powerfully shore up Montcalm's defences. He looks at a headlong boat assault right onto the docks of the city, but even if the boats reached the quays, a successful progress through the lower town and up the cliffs under plunging fire from the upper town seems impossible.
On July 15, Wolfe orders the grenadiers of his regiments to the Ile d'Orléans, "where a corps is to assemble for a particular purpose." He is thinking his best chance lies in attacking the dug-in defences at the end of the French lines around Montmorency. More on this plan as it develops.
Wolfe needs some aggro. He has deadlines; he has to win or go home in humiliation, and winter comes early around here. He keeps looking for a crack in Quebec's defences: he looks upstream, beyond the city, but the navy has not yet dared move through the narrows between Quebec and Lévy. He looks to the downriver end of Montcalm's lines, at Montmorency Falls, but the Montmorency river and the cliffs along the north shore of the St. Lawrence powerfully shore up Montcalm's defences. He looks at a headlong boat assault right onto the docks of the city, but even if the boats reached the quays, a successful progress through the lower town and up the cliffs under plunging fire from the upper town seems impossible.
On July 15, Wolfe orders the grenadiers of his regiments to the Ile d'Orléans, "where a corps is to assemble for a particular purpose." He is thinking his best chance lies in attacking the dug-in defences at the end of the French lines around Montmorency. More on this plan as it develops.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Live-blogging the Siege of Quebec +250 #12
July 14: Captain John Knox of the British 43rd Regiment, one of the principal diarists on the English side, notes how the campaign depends on interdicting resupply to the French forces and continuing to build up the British force at Quebec:
A large twenty-gun ship bound from Rochelle to Quebec was taken a few days ago by some of our frigates off the island of Anticosti; she was laden with flour, biscuit, brandy, wine, and stores, which were to have been conveyed by the river Saguenay. A fleet of transports are arrived from New York and Boston, with stores and provisions of all kinds, three hundred provincials are also arrived to recruit the ranging companies and corps of artificers.He is also becoming a student of the local weather: "The summers in this country are very hot, and subject to violent rains; we had a great fall today."
Some Cow History for Stampede Week
Cow history sounds like a caption from The Far Side. As Friedrich Neitzsche memorably put it in the opening line of On the Use and Abuse of History ( (full text here), "Observe the herd which is grazing beside you. It does not know what yesterday or today is."
But in recent years some western historians and the University of Calgary Press has been making a nice mix of economic, political, environmental, and cultural history out of the yesterdays and todays of cattle. There's been Simon Evans's handsome book on the Bar U Ranch, a collection of essays by Evans with Sarah Carter and Bill Yeo called Cowboys, Ranchers, and the Cattle Business and, just out, Warren Elofson's Somebody Else's Money: The Walrond Ranch 1883-1907. Maybe it's just the pictures of those great foothills landscapes, but I'm a sucker for this stuff.
Calgary Herald 1884: "The rough and festive cowboy of Texas and Oregon has no counterpart here... the genuine Alberta cowboy is a gentleman." (picked up actually from David Breen's earlier work on The Canadian Prairie West and the RAnching Frontier)
Winners
The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History has been handing out prizes. Janet Ajzenstat, whose Idea File blog has more than once been among "This Week's Links" at right, is receiving the inaugural John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Constitutional Legal History for her book The Canadian Founding: John Locke and Parliament. Ajzenstat, you might say, admires Lockean liberal principles; recently on her blog she has been looking sceptically at Ian MacKay's much less approving (also prize-winning) take on 19th century liberal traditions in Canada.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #11
On the night of July 12-13, volunteers from Quebec launch their raid against the enemy batteries now pounding the city from the south shore. During the night, the force crosses the river well to the west of the British position on Point Levy. The raid quickly collapse in confusion. As men of the raiding party lose their way in the dark, they begin firing on each other and giving way to panic. “Three times M. Dumas contrived to rally his people, and three times his soldiers, mutually mistaking one another for enemies, fired at their own men and went tumbling over each other down the hill to get back to the canoes” Before dawn, the raiders have retreated back across the river, leaving the British unaware they had even been under threat.
This will be the last offensive the forces inside Quebec will launch against their besiegers.
On July 13,, the French military office Captain Malartic notes in his diary that “M. de Montcalm went into the city to reassure the townspeople, who are dismayed by the effect of the enemy fire. It was necessary to send twenty men per battalion to reinforce and encourage the town garrison, which will be relieved every two days.”
This will be the last offensive the forces inside Quebec will launch against their besiegers.
On July 13,, the French military office Captain Malartic notes in his diary that “M. de Montcalm went into the city to reassure the townspeople, who are dismayed by the effect of the enemy fire. It was necessary to send twenty men per battalion to reinforce and encourage the town garrison, which will be relieved every two days.”
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #10
July 12: While the Quebec townspeople's raiding party gets organized, the siege guns they want to destroy finally go to work about nine in the evening. Here's the Journal du Siège again:
The enemy continued the bombardment all night. We replied from the town … but the batteries hit us at least 120 times, and several houses were smashed down. One shot fell on the cathedral, others on the Jesuit church and on several other buildings. The longest shot that landed inside the town fell fifty steps inside the Saint-Jean Gate.This will be the experience of the townspeople for the rest of the siege and, though they don't know it, the siege has two months to run.
RIP Keith Ralston 1922-2009
Keith Ralston, historian of British Columbia and mentor to scores of students in that field, died recently at 87. There is a memorial service in Vancouver today.
When I was an undergraduate at UBC, students called him "Mr." Ralston, aware by osmosis he was somehow a little outside the normal tenure-track academic career. Now, seeing more of his career, that seems a badge of honour. Ralston was a journalist, an labour activist, a school teacher, and the founding curator of Vancouver's standout Maritime Museum before joining the history department (about the time I became a student there).
When I was an undergraduate at UBC, students called him "Mr." Ralston, aware by osmosis he was somehow a little outside the normal tenure-track academic career. Now, seeing more of his career, that seems a badge of honour. Ralston was a journalist, an labour activist, a school teacher, and the founding curator of Vancouver's standout Maritime Museum before joining the history department (about the time I became a student there).
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #9
July 11. By now the powerful concern of the townspeople is with the siege batteries being built just across the river narrows, and almost ready to commence firing upon the town. Today the principal merchants and tradesmen of the town present a petition to Governor Vaudreuil, volunteering to serve in a raiding party that would cross the river to seize and destroy the enemy batteries before they begin firing.
By nightfall the force is ready. Jean-Baptiste Dumas, a veteran officer of the colonial regular troops who has been given responsibility for the town militia, takes the lead. "This detachment must have twelve hundred to fifteen hundred men, both regular troops and Canadians and Indians, who are all volunteers…," writes the anonymous author of the Journal du Siège. "We are counting heavily on this detachment. God will that they succeed; we definitely need them to.
By nightfall the force is ready. Jean-Baptiste Dumas, a veteran officer of the colonial regular troops who has been given responsibility for the town militia, takes the lead. "This detachment must have twelve hundred to fifteen hundred men, both regular troops and Canadians and Indians, who are all volunteers…," writes the anonymous author of the Journal du Siège. "We are counting heavily on this detachment. God will that they succeed; we definitely need them to.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #8
July 10: More than a week after the British have established themselves on the south shore, the Ile d'Orleans, and the north shore north-east of Montmorency, the siege of Quebec is still a long-distance confrontation for most citizens and even for the troops. The anonymous Journal du Siège reports:
A note on histories of the siege of Quebec: Three books stand out.
The first is C.P. Stacey's Quebec 1759: The Siege and the Battle, first published fifty years ago in 1959. Stacey wrote this more or less in his spare time while shepherding to publication the official history of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. What a good historian he was -- I once heard him called the best of his generation in his technical skills. He seems to have been superbly organized, judicious, plain-spoken, and surely a prodigious worker. Donald Graves edited a new edition of Stacey's Quebec 1759 a couple of years ago.
Second is Fred Anderson's Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-66, published in 2000. I first found this a bit Americano-centric, and he is looking for the roots of the American Revolution. But Anderson is very good at carrying readers away from thinking it is just Amherst/Wolfe versus Montcalm/Vaudreuil; this is the best book on the big sweep of the conflict, interested in frontier alliances and British politics as well as the armies on the St. Lawrence. He's actually quite succinct on the siege of Quebec, but this is the one for the bigger context.
The principal new work for the 250th anniversary is Peter MacLeod's Northern Armageddon, published last year. Not easy to go up against Stacey's classic, but MacLeod has new material and a social-history sense that is fresh.
Finally, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume III, back in 1974, included essays on "The French Forces in North America during the Seven Years' War " by W.J. Eccles and "The British Forces in North America during the Seven Years' War" by Stacey, that remain terrifically useful. The online DBC has biographies of all the principal figures, but does not include the background essays, like these two, that appeared in its early print volumes.
At seven in the morning, an English deserter crossed the river toward the town in a leaky canoe. As soon as he was seen, our people went to get him. His report: they have 6000 men landed at Ange-Gardien and at least 2000 at Pointe à Lévy; that is all their troops. They had stationed at Pointe de Lévy a regiment made up of all nations that never wanted to serve. They had to re-embark them and put Royal Marines ashore to replace them….***
At 7.30 in the evening, a seaman was killed at the Dauphine battery by a mortar bomb that exploded as it came out of the mortar. This was the first casualty in the city.
A note on histories of the siege of Quebec: Three books stand out.
The first is C.P. Stacey's Quebec 1759: The Siege and the Battle, first published fifty years ago in 1959. Stacey wrote this more or less in his spare time while shepherding to publication the official history of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. What a good historian he was -- I once heard him called the best of his generation in his technical skills. He seems to have been superbly organized, judicious, plain-spoken, and surely a prodigious worker. Donald Graves edited a new edition of Stacey's Quebec 1759 a couple of years ago.
Second is Fred Anderson's Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-66, published in 2000. I first found this a bit Americano-centric, and he is looking for the roots of the American Revolution. But Anderson is very good at carrying readers away from thinking it is just Amherst/Wolfe versus Montcalm/Vaudreuil; this is the best book on the big sweep of the conflict, interested in frontier alliances and British politics as well as the armies on the St. Lawrence. He's actually quite succinct on the siege of Quebec, but this is the one for the bigger context.
The principal new work for the 250th anniversary is Peter MacLeod's Northern Armageddon, published last year. Not easy to go up against Stacey's classic, but MacLeod has new material and a social-history sense that is fresh.
Finally, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Volume III, back in 1974, included essays on "The French Forces in North America during the Seven Years' War " by W.J. Eccles and "The British Forces in North America during the Seven Years' War" by Stacey, that remain terrifically useful. The online DBC has biographies of all the principal figures, but does not include the background essays, like these two, that appeared in its early print volumes.
Charles Roland 1933-2009, medical historian
Belated notice of the life (and death last month) of Dr. Charles Roland, who pretty much created medical history in Canada as the Hannah professor of medical history at McMaster University School of Medicine. The Globe had a good obituary.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Speaking of niche blogging....
Mark Reynolds is blogging the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, all photographed too. And I want to go there.
LIve-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #7
[Due to a technical error -- someone can't read a calendar, more or less -- July 9's events time-travelled into July 8's report. I've now put some new material in yesterday's post, and I've moved the events reported yesterday to today, where they should have been in the first place, and expanded them a bit.]
July 9: Montcalm, reviewing his options in a letter to Lévis, his second-in-command, emphasizes the benefits of the defensive strategy: shore up the lines and let the British try to get at them.
Action: The diarist Foligné describes heavy firing from the batteries at Quebec across the river to Pointe de Levy, "where the enemy has been building for some days a battery to fire on the city." Wolfe is not yet able to pour fire in upon the city, its defenders, and its citizens. But the townspeople know what's coming. As Lévis's journal reports: "The people of Quebec, seeing with concern the gun batteries the enemy is building at Pointe de Levy, which will be able to burn and destroy their homes, urgently demand that they be allowed to go attack those works."
Meanwhile, the Journal du Siège notes the results of yesterday's moves at Montmorency:
July 9: Montcalm, reviewing his options in a letter to Lévis, his second-in-command, emphasizes the benefits of the defensive strategy: shore up the lines and let the British try to get at them.
Action: The diarist Foligné describes heavy firing from the batteries at Quebec across the river to Pointe de Levy, "where the enemy has been building for some days a battery to fire on the city." Wolfe is not yet able to pour fire in upon the city, its defenders, and its citizens. But the townspeople know what's coming. As Lévis's journal reports: "The people of Quebec, seeing with concern the gun batteries the enemy is building at Pointe de Levy, which will be able to burn and destroy their homes, urgently demand that they be allowed to go attack those works."
Meanwhile, the Journal du Siège notes the results of yesterday's moves at Montmorency:
We learn of firing at the [Montmorency Falls, and of the ships firing on M. de Lévy’s camp, just to entertain them, no doubt.(Casualty estimates for the other side, it should be said, tend to be unreliable and generally exaggerated)
The result: the Ottawas defeated about forty English who advanced in a squad. And they attacked another column of 300 or 400 men who recoiled and than, as a second group flanked them, were hard hit. In this skirmish we had 4 Canadiens and three natives killed and one Canadien and four natives wounded. The English had at least a hundred men killed, but they have held their place. They encamped above the falls and they have a two-gun battery. They know their trade well. I hope we know ours – in truth we are going to need it.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Abolishing the Senate... in Japan
Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party is thinking of abolishing the upper house of the Japanese parliament, going forward with a unicameral legislature and 30% fewer legislators.
Japan is a fascinating example of how flexible the parliamentary system is. In Canada we lament the autocratic power of prime ministers and the feebleness of backbenchers, and we diagnose this as the inevitable consequence of a parliamentary system. But in Japan, with a broadly similar parliamentary structure, prime ministers are vulnerable creatures who cannot impose their policies and who rarely last more than a year. Factions within the party caucus jockey fiercely for their own policies and candidates at all times.
(h/t: Fruits and Votes)
Japan is a fascinating example of how flexible the parliamentary system is. In Canada we lament the autocratic power of prime ministers and the feebleness of backbenchers, and we diagnose this as the inevitable consequence of a parliamentary system. But in Japan, with a broadly similar parliamentary structure, prime ministers are vulnerable creatures who cannot impose their policies and who rarely last more than a year. Factions within the party caucus jockey fiercely for their own policies and candidates at all times.
(h/t: Fruits and Votes)
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #6
[As explained in the italicized note for July 9, this entry has been redone.]
July 8: Wolfe, habitually restless, eager for action, always preferring contact to the slow preliminaries of siege, makes a move at the only point where contact seems possible: at the far left of Montcalm's lines (which means north-east of the city where the Montmorency river runs south, drops over its falls, and joins the St. Lawrence. His initial instinct (it will also be his final one) had been to land upriver of Quebec, but the fleet does not yet control the river sufficiently, so for the time being he goes with what's feasible.
Today he lands troops at Ange-Gardien, on the north shore between Quebec and Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré on the north shore, and threatens to cross the Montmorency. The anonymous Journal du Siège observes and frets: "We estimate that the English have landed at least 1600 men at Ange-Gardien; I really fear that we will have a lot of trouble pushing them out, although a thousand Canadiens and natives led by M. de Courtemanche will be moved there during the night."
July 8: Wolfe, habitually restless, eager for action, always preferring contact to the slow preliminaries of siege, makes a move at the only point where contact seems possible: at the far left of Montcalm's lines (which means north-east of the city where the Montmorency river runs south, drops over its falls, and joins the St. Lawrence. His initial instinct (it will also be his final one) had been to land upriver of Quebec, but the fleet does not yet control the river sufficiently, so for the time being he goes with what's feasible.
Today he lands troops at Ange-Gardien, on the north shore between Quebec and Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré on the north shore, and threatens to cross the Montmorency. The anonymous Journal du Siège observes and frets: "We estimate that the English have landed at least 1600 men at Ange-Gardien; I really fear that we will have a lot of trouble pushing them out, although a thousand Canadiens and natives led by M. de Courtemanche will be moved there during the night."
Just noticing: the Hesjedal file
Ryder Hesjedal currently stands 21st overall out of 180 who started the Tour de France. Bring on the mountains! Getting some coverage from CBC Sports, not much in the Globe, and of course largely anonymous on the American TV coverage picked up by Outdoor Life Network (which I love anyway).
History of blogging
I'm willing to consider the "blog" as a phenomenon of recent history worthy of historical analysis, and here's someone who's trying. But most of the reflections seem entirely unrelated to what interests me about the potential of weblogs. This blog, I hope, stands among those that are not much influenced by how "A-listers," the MSM, and Huffington Post are changing blogging, and the declaration that "most bloggers spend three to five hours a day blogging" leaves me slack-jawed. The only observation that echoes here is #2, about the future being with "niche" blogging, and most of the other points seem to ignore that rule.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #5
July 7: The British cannot besiege Quebec effectively until they have secure control of the St. Lawrence. Early in July, they are still far short of that, even downriver from the city and the narrows.
Foligné, a merchant marine officer detached to command a gun battery on the quay of Quebec, takes a professional interest in the naval skirmishing today, describing how British vessels move into the strait between the Ile d'Orléans and the north shore near Montmorency Falls, how gunboats and floating batteries engage them, and how the British fall back to the main body of their fleet. "That is how this engagement ended, without loss or damage on our part,," he writes; "we do not know what damage the enemy may have received from the shots which we saw hitting home." Captain Bell, a British diarist, notes "the passage from Montmorency to Levy for boats still dangerous, the floating batteries still reigning triumphant." Wolfe had been grousing earlier about "the amazing backwardness in these matters on the part of the fleet." (As C. P. Stacey observes, he is accusing the navy of being gun-shy.)
Foligné, a merchant marine officer detached to command a gun battery on the quay of Quebec, takes a professional interest in the naval skirmishing today, describing how British vessels move into the strait between the Ile d'Orléans and the north shore near Montmorency Falls, how gunboats and floating batteries engage them, and how the British fall back to the main body of their fleet. "That is how this engagement ended, without loss or damage on our part,," he writes; "we do not know what damage the enemy may have received from the shots which we saw hitting home." Captain Bell, a British diarist, notes "the passage from Montmorency to Levy for boats still dangerous, the floating batteries still reigning triumphant." Wolfe had been grousing earlier about "the amazing backwardness in these matters on the part of the fleet." (As C. P. Stacey observes, he is accusing the navy of being gun-shy.)
When the past is less like a foreign country, more like a distant planet
When Robert McNamara, who died the other day at 93, left the services at the end of the Second World War, he wanted to take up a position as a Harvard professor. But he joined the Ford Motor Company instead. His wife was ill and he feared he would not be able to support her on a Harvard professor's salary.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Potter on parliament in the LRC
Those of you who took up my offer some months ago and are now luxuriating in the munificence of my benevolence (that is, you are receiving the complimentary Literary Review of Canada subscription for which I had the pleasant opportunity of making nominations) can now read in the crisp new pages of the July-August issue Andrew Potter's lively review of Peter Russell and Lorne Sossin's collection Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis, an academic instabook about the coalition, the prorogation and all that from last winter. The review is not online as yet, so for the moment it's dead-tree or can't-see.
Potter is hard on the collection for including only those he calls "parliamentarians" -- that is, those who saw the coalition as a normal and legitimate part of the parliamentary process, and now see their task as explaining to benighted and ill-informed Canadians why this is so. Potter notes several prominent scholars and intellectuals who took the contrary "democrat" position last winter: that is, they asserted that the coalition challenge may have been conformed to parliamentary rules but offended against the requirements of popular legitimization and consent. Not that they are necessarily right, says Potter, it's their exclusion from the volume that is unacceptable. The contributors, he fears, are permitted to lecture when they should debate.
Regular readers may guess I'm a "parliamentarian" myself. But I see Potter's point. Well done, LRC (again).
Update, July 9: Potter expands on this at his Maclean's blog, and a flood of commentators vent.
Update, July 13. The July LRC is now online, but not including Potter's article.
Potter is hard on the collection for including only those he calls "parliamentarians" -- that is, those who saw the coalition as a normal and legitimate part of the parliamentary process, and now see their task as explaining to benighted and ill-informed Canadians why this is so. Potter notes several prominent scholars and intellectuals who took the contrary "democrat" position last winter: that is, they asserted that the coalition challenge may have been conformed to parliamentary rules but offended against the requirements of popular legitimization and consent. Not that they are necessarily right, says Potter, it's their exclusion from the volume that is unacceptable. The contributors, he fears, are permitted to lecture when they should debate.
Regular readers may guess I'm a "parliamentarian" myself. But I see Potter's point. Well done, LRC (again).
Update, July 9: Potter expands on this at his Maclean's blog, and a flood of commentators vent.
Update, July 13. The July LRC is now online, but not including Potter's article.
History of California
Arts and Letters Daily (link now corrected!) highlights The Atlantic's review of the eighth volume of Kevin Starr’s Americans and the California Dream, which must be one of the most extraordinary single-author historical projects currently in progress.
The news these days has California collapsing under the follies of plebiscitary democracy, where a simple majority can amend the constitution to abrogate minority rights but the legislature needs a 2/3rd majority to pass a budget and endless plebiscites bind the state ever more firmly in tax cuts and bankruptcy. Starr's new volume on the years 1950-63, ironically, is all about the glory days of California, when it had the best schools and universities (all publicly funded), the best infrastructure (ditto), the best parks and recreational facilities (ditto), and limitless job possibilities (much of it from federal investment).
Poor California -- suicide by referendum.
The news these days has California collapsing under the follies of plebiscitary democracy, where a simple majority can amend the constitution to abrogate minority rights but the legislature needs a 2/3rd majority to pass a budget and endless plebiscites bind the state ever more firmly in tax cuts and bankruptcy. Starr's new volume on the years 1950-63, ironically, is all about the glory days of California, when it had the best schools and universities (all publicly funded), the best infrastructure (ditto), the best parks and recreational facilities (ditto), and limitless job possibilities (much of it from federal investment).
Poor California -- suicide by referendum.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec +250 #4
July 6. The British navy and army, still arriving at Quebec, is preoccupied with setting out the groundwork for the siege of the city. Today the crucial action is to the west, at Fort Niagara.
Niagara, an old and substantial fortification (in the territory of the Seneca, westernmost of the Six Nations), enables New France to move men and supplies in bulk along Lakes Ontario and Erie. Niagara's commander, Captain Pierre Pouchot, a French regular officer with skills in both engineering and native diplomacy, returned from Montreal in the spring. Pouchot then dispatched 2500 (of his force of 3000 men) onward, across Lake Erie to attack Fort Pitt (the modern Pittsburgh) on the Ohio. The plan is to regain control of the Ohio-Mississippi communications route, shore up the confidence of the allied First Nations in the west, and by renewing forays into Pennsylvania and Virginia, force the British to retain substantial forces in the west, thus weakening their drive toward the heartland of New France.
French power in all this territory depends on alliances with the First Nations and on the delicate entente with the Six Nations, who have remained largely neutral in French-English quarrels since the Great Peace of 1701 ended a century of warfare between the Iroquois coalition south of the Great Lakes and the French-native coalition based north of the Lakes. Pouchot knows a British thrust to Fort Niagara could come via Oswego, at the southeastern end of Lake Ontario -- but he concludes that if such a thrust is developing, the Six Nations will keep him informed.
Montcalm, commander of the French army in New France, has never been keen on the disposition of thousands of soldiers into the west. Montcalm and Levis, his second-in-command of the army, want to concentrate on defending the approaches to Montreal and Quebec. It is Governor Vaudreuil who continues the fighting on all fronts, and Montcalm fears that Pouchot, "caressed in the study of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, has not gained caution by it."
On July 6 Captain Pouchot learns New France's entente with the Six Nations is coming to pieces. As the British power waxes, the Six Nations are accomodating to what they conclude must be the new reality. They have allowed Lt-Colonel Prideaux to move a British attack force in small boats from Oswego to Niagara without even a hint reaching Pouchot. Mohawks led by William Johnston, New York's influential envoy to the eastern Six Nations, are part of the force. On July 6, Mohawks, scouting just ahead of Prideaux's force, ambush some of Pouchot's men as they work outside the fort. This attack launches the unexpected siege of Fort Niagara -- and threatens the collapse of all New France's efforts in the west. Most of Pouchot's forces are away on the Ohio mission.
Update, July 8: "The History Blog" has news here on what Fort Niagara did to commemorate these events on July 4, 2009
(Photo: Old Fort Niagara)
Friday, July 03, 2009
A day for Ryder Hesjedal to make history
I know it's also a big day for our friends down south, but across the pond it is the first day of the Tour de France (in Monaco, actually, today), and broadcast on the OLN channel. Again this year, this guy, Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria, is the lone Canadian on the tour. He had a terrific tour last year, not that Canadian sports journalists pay any heed. This is his website.
Update, July 6: Both CB sports and The Globe and Mail have begun incorporating Canadian Press coverage of Hesjedal into the stories they reprint from Associated Press.
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec 3
July 5, 1759: Two military couriers come in to Montcalm from the north shore beyond the Ile d'Orléans. Both report that the British navy is having little trouble navigating the river. Large numbers of British warships are now moving safely through the narrows and channels of the river, bringing the main body of the British army and supplies and most of the naval firepower, the forces thatwill prosecute the siege of the city together.
Live-blogging the Siege of Quebec 2
July 4, 1759: With the British siege forces moving into place facing the city, Foligné, a diarist within the city of Québec, reports that Montcalm this day issued a declaration that all within the city who could not serve the armed forces or were fearful should leave for Trois-Rivières or Montreal immediately
Live-blogging the siege of Quebec 1
[In July 1759 the siege of Quebec was just getting started. I'm thinking of live-blogging the whole thing, 250 years late. If any readers are deep into the sources on this, particularly the French sources inside Quebec, please get in touch - my library is not so extensive, and I would be glad to have co-authors on this]
July 3: General Wolfe, just getting his troops established on the Ile d'Orléans and the south shore, writes in his journal of his consultations with Admiral Saunders:
July 3: General Wolfe, just getting his troops established on the Ile d'Orléans and the south shore, writes in his journal of his consultations with Admiral Saunders:
Our notions agreeing to get ashore if possible above the Town we determined to attempt it. Troops and ships prepared accordingly. Admiral was of the opinion that none of the ships could be of the least use on the Beauport side [i.e., downriver, NE of the city].The same day, General Montcalm, reading the situation the same way, concludes he could withdraw his forces from the Beauport to shorten his stretched-out defence line.
More DCB Search
Following on yesterday's post below, friends of this blog assure me (in the nicest way) that when it comes to searching in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, the problem is that I'm a techno-peasant. Don't search just because it invites you to -- you have to use the Advanced Search to get anywhere. Aaah, that's better.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Would tearing down 24 Sussex Drive be a heritage disaster?
Paul Wells thinks we should tear down the prime minister's residence and hold an architectural competition for an up-to-snuff replacement building.
Y'know, I hope all the various heritage societies I support won't excommunicate me at once, but I kinda like the idea.
Y'know, I hope all the various heritage societies I support won't excommunicate me at once, but I kinda like the idea.
If Bernie Madoff were just completing his sentence...
... he would have to have been committing his crimes in the mid-nineteenth century and convicted for them in 1859. Yes, that's some sentence.
Years ago, Paul Romney wrote a long, not so easy to read, but pretty terrific article called "The Ten Thousand Pound Job" on financial skullduggery in Upper Canada in the 1850s. The remarkable thing about that affair, he writes, is that for once there actually was some retribution visited upon the wrongdoers.
Now if Francis Hincks had got 150 years in 1859 (instead of going on to be Governor of Barbados and Minister of Finance in John A. Macdonald's cabinet, he'd be a free man today at 202 years of age.
(I tried to check Hincks's birthdate in the DBC Online, gave it up as impossible (try it), and found it to the print edition, Volume 11. I wish the DCB would make its terrific online edition truly --that is, efficiently -- searchable. Nobody seems to care.)
Years ago, Paul Romney wrote a long, not so easy to read, but pretty terrific article called "The Ten Thousand Pound Job" on financial skullduggery in Upper Canada in the 1850s. The remarkable thing about that affair, he writes, is that for once there actually was some retribution visited upon the wrongdoers.
The juggernaut was simply too strong. The railway interest represented an unprecedented concentration of economic power, and to colonial politicians, who generally had little understanding of the world of international finance which had suddenly embraced them, the railway builder seemed to have the power of life and death.For "railway interest," read "financial services industry," and it all sounds a bit the same.
Now if Francis Hincks had got 150 years in 1859 (instead of going on to be Governor of Barbados and Minister of Finance in John A. Macdonald's cabinet, he'd be a free man today at 202 years of age.
(I tried to check Hincks's birthdate in the DBC Online, gave it up as impossible (try it), and found it to the print edition, Volume 11. I wish the DCB would make its terrific online edition truly --that is, efficiently -- searchable. Nobody seems to care.)
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