Montcalm and Wolfe : The French and Indian War

by PARKMAN, FRANCIS

• ISBN13: 9780375754203
• ISBN10: 0375754202
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

The result of over forty years of passionate research, Montcalm and Wolfe is the epic story of Europe's struggle for dominance of the New World. Centuries of rivalry and greed between the great imperial powers culminated in five brutal years of war; resulted in the death of both generals, Louis de Montcalm and James Wolfe; and ultimately sowed the seeds of the American Revolution, fought a scant seventeen years later. A brilliant work of scholarship as well as a riveting read, Montcalm and Wolfe was thought by many, including the author, to be Parkman's greatest work. It is an essential part of any military history collection. The books in the Modern Library War series have been chosen by series editor Caleb Carr according to the significance of their subject matter, their contribution to the field of military history, and their literary merit.

Author Biography

<b>Francis Parkman</b> was born in Boston in 1823 and is best known for his masterly seven-volume history, France and England in North America, and for the annual prize awarded by the Society of American Historians in his honor. He died in 1893.<br><br><b>Caleb Carr</b> is the bestselling author of the novels <i>The Alienist</i> and <i>The Angel of Darkness</i>, as well as a critically acclaimed biography of an American mercenary, <i>The Devil Soldier</i>. He writes frequently on military history for <i>The New York Times</i> and <i>MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History</i>, where he is a contributing editor.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Modern Library War Series	ix
Caleb Carr
Introduction	xi
John Keegan
Preface	xxvii
Foreword	xxix
1745-1755: The Combatants	3	(15)
1749-1752: Celoron de Bienville	18	(13)
1749-1753: Conflict for the West	31	(13)
1710-1754: Conflict for Acadia	44	(20)
1753, 1754: Washington	64	(17)
1754, 1755: The Signal of Battle	81	(12)
1755: Braddock	93	(27)
1755-1763: Removal of the Acadians	120	(26)
1755: Dieskau	146	(16)
1755, 1756: Shirley. Border War	162	(16)
1712-1756: Montcalm	178	(14)
1756: Oswego	192	(17)
1756, 1757: Partisan War	209	(17)
1757: Montcalm and Vaudreuil	226	(10)
1757: Fort William Henry	236	(21)
1757, 1758: A Winter of Discontent	257	(8)
1753-1760: Bigot	265	(11)
1757-1758: Pitt	276	(7)
1758: Louisbourg	283	(16)
1758: Ticonderoga	299	(16)
1758: Fort Frontenac	315	(8)
1758: Fort Duquesne	323	(16)
1758, 1759: The Brink of Ruin	339	(9)
1758, 1759: Wolfe	348	(7)
1759: Wolfe at Quebec	355	(21)
1759: Amherst. Niagara	376	(12)
1759: The Heights of Abraham	388	(20)
1759: Fall of Quebec	408	(14)
1759, 1760: Sante-Foy	422	(16)
1760: Fall of Canada	438	(11)
1758-1763: The Peace of Paris	449	(12)
1763-1884: Conclusion	461	(4)
Appendix	465	(16)
Index	481

Excerpts

The latter half of the reign of George II. was one of the most prosaic periods in English history. The civil wars and the Restoration had had their enthusiasms, religion and liberty on one side, and loyalty on the other; but the old fires declined when William III. came to the throne, and died to ashes under the House of Hanover. Loyalty lost half its inspiration when it lost the tenet of the divine right of kings; and nobody could now hold that tenet with any consistency except the defeated and despairing Jacobites. Nor had anybody as yet proclaimed the rival dogma of the divine right of the people. The reigning monarch held his crown neither of God nor of the nation, but of a parliament controlled by a ruling class. The Whig aristocracy had done a priceless service to English liberty. It was full of political capacity, and by no means void of patriotism; but it was only a part of the national life. Nor was it at present moved by political emotions in any high sense. It had done its great work when it expelled the Stuarts and placed William of Orange on the throne; its ascendency was now complete. The Stuarts had received their death-blow at Culloden; and nothing was left to the dominant party but to dispute on subordinate questions, and contend for office among themselves. The Tory squires sulked in their country-houses, hunted foxes, and grumbled against the reigning dynasty; yet hardly wished to see the nation convulsed by a counter-revolution and another return of the Stuarts.

If politics had run to commonplace, so had morals; and so too had religion. Despondent writers of the day even complained that British courage had died out. There was little sign to the common eye that under a dull and languid surface, forces were at work preparing a new life, material, moral, and intellectual. As yet, Whitefield and Wesley had not wakened the drowsy conscience of the nation, nor the voice of William Pitt roused it like a trumpet-peal.

It was the unwashed and unsavory England of Hogarth, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne; of Tom Jones, Squire Western, Lady Bellaston, and Parson Adams; of the 'Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage à la Mode'; of the lords and ladies who yet live in the undying gossip of Horace Walpole, be-powdered, be-patched, and be-rouged, flirting at masked balls, playing cards till daylight, retailing scandal, and exchanging double meanings. Beau Nash reigned king over the gaming-tables of Bath; the ostrich-plumes of great ladies mingled with the peacock-feathers of courtesans in the rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens; and young lords in velvet suits and embroidered ruffles played away their patrimony at White's Chocolate-House or Arthur's Club. Vice was bolder than to-day, and manners more courtly, perhaps, but far more coarse.

The humbler clergy were thought--sometimes with reason--to be no fit company for gentlemen, and country parsons drank their ale in the squire's kitchen. The passenger-wagon spent the better part of a fortnight in creeping from London to York. Travellers carried pistols against footpads and mounted highwaymen. Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard were popular heroes. Tyburn counted its victims by scores; and as yet no Howard had appeared to reform the inhuman abominations of the prisons.

The middle class, though fast rising in importance, was feebly and imperfectly represented in parliament. The boroughs were controlled by the nobility and gentry, or by corporations open to influence or bribery. Parliamentary corruption had been reduced to a system; and offices, sinecures, pensions, and gifts of money were freely used to keep ministers in power. The great offices of state were held by men sometimes of high ability, but of whom not a few divided their lives among politics, cards, wine, horse-racing, and women, till time and the gout sent them to the waters of Bath. The dull, pompous, and irascible old King had two ruling passions,--money, and his Continental dominions of Hanover. His elder son, the Prince of Wales, was a centre of opposition to him. His younger son, the Duke of Cumberland, a character far more pronounced and vigorous, had won the day at Culloden, and lost it at Fontenoy; but whether victor or vanquished, had shown the same vehement bull-headed courage, of late a little subdued by fast growing corpulency. The Duke of Newcastle, the head of the government, had gained power and kept it by his rank and connections, his wealth, his county influence, his control of boroughs, and the extraordinary assiduity and devotion with which he practised the arts of corruption. Henry Fox, grasping, unscrupulous, with powerful talents, a warm friend after his fashion, and a most indulgent father; Carteret, with his strong, versatile intellect and jovial intrepidity; the two Townshends, Mansfield, Halifax, and Chesterfield,--were conspicuous figures in the politics of the time. One man towered above them all. Pitt had many enemies and many critics. They called him ambitious, audacious, arrogant, theatrical, pompous, domineering; but what he has left for posterity is a loftiness of soul, undaunted courage, fiery and passionate eloquence, proud incorruptibility, domestic virtues rare in his day, unbounded faith in the cause for which he stood, and abilities which without wealth or strong connections were destined to place him on the height of power. The middle class, as yet almost voiceless, looked to him as its champion; but he was not the champion of a class. His patriotism was as comprehensive as it was haughty and unbending. He lived for England, loved her with intense devotion, knew her, believed in her, and made her greatness his own; or rather, he was himself England incarnate.

The nation was not then in fighting equipment. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the army within the three kingdoms had been reduced to about eighteen thousand men. Added to these were the garrisons of Minorca and Gibraltar, and six or seven independent companies in the American colonies. Of sailors, less than seventeen thousand were left in the Royal Navy. Such was the condition of England on the eve of one of the most formidable wars in which she was ever engaged.

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Excerpted from Montcalm and Wolfe: The French and Indian War by Francis Parkman
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