The campaign that made his name had been a failure for two months. On 31 July 1759 Wolfe put about 3,500 men ashore at Montmorency and they were shot to pieces in the shallows; the Louisbourg Grenadiers went in and were cut up, a thunderstorm ended the business, and he came away with some 450 casualties against sixty French. Sickness went through the camps that summer, and in August Wolfe was in bed with it himself. The river would freeze and the fleet would have to leave. He had been studying landing places as much as thirty-two kilometres upstream when he abruptly changed his mind — one of his brigadiers noted that "by some intelligence the General had, he has changed his mind as to the place he intended to land" — and settled on L'Anse-au-Foulon, much nearer the town and much more dangerous. On the night of 12 September the boats went down on the current in the dark. Challenged from the bank, a French-speaking officer, either a Captain Fraser or a Captain Donald McDonald, answered in excellent French and the sentries let them pass. Volunteers under Colonel William Howe went up first and cleared the picket at the head of the path, and the army climbed after them. By morning about 4,400 British soldiers were formed on the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm had roughly 3,500 regulars he could bring to bear; there were more than 13,000 French troops in the region, but they were not there. The main action took about an hour and cost the British 658 casualties and the French between 644 and 716, with 350 taken. Wolfe was hit twice and died on the field. It is remembered as audacity, and it was — but it was also a sick commander running out of season, out of options and out of ideas, betting everything on a cove. The figure has him in a general officer's scarlet coat with yellow facings and lace over a yellow waistcoat and breeches, black boots, sword at his side. His opponent, who outlived him by a few hours, is the Marquis de Montcalm. The same war had already given a young colonial officer his first hard lessons a few years earlier and several hundred miles south — see George Washington of the Virginia Regiment. And the colony Wolfe took that morning had to be defended again half a century later, against a different enemy, by General Isaac Brock. Model: 10134 / W. Britain / 1/30 scale / matte finish / 1 piece set
