Battle of the Plains of Abraham

Before dawn, 13 September 1759

In the early hours of 13 September 1759, Major-General James Wolfe's British force landed at a cove west of Quebec, climbed the cliff path, overcame the small riverside guard and formed on the Heights of Abraham behind the city.

Soldiers in flat-bottomed boats had slipped beneath Quebec's cliffs while the fleet staged a diversion elsewhere. Disease was weakening Wolfe's army and the campaigning season was closing.

The volley on the plateau

The Marquis de Montcalm brought French regulars, Canadian militia and Indigenous allies out to confront Wolfe's army on the plateau. About 4,500 French troops took part; the British expedition numbered about 5,000.

Wolfe's regulars withheld their fire, then delivered disciplined volleys with double-loaded muskets. The French attack broke and retreated toward Quebec.

Two dying commanders, and a city that had not surrendered

Wolfe was mortally wounded and died on the field. Lieutenant Henry Browne, one of only four men known to have attended him, later wrote that Wolfe asked whether the enemy had been defeated and then died in his arms.

Montcalm was also mortally wounded, but reached Quebec and died on 14 September. Casualties were near-matched: about 640 French and about 650 British killed or wounded, by the National Army Museum's figures.

The British held the battlefield by the end of 13 September, but Quebec did not fall that day. Jean-Baptiste-Nicolas-Roch de Ramezay signed the city's capitulation on 18 September, with George Townshend and Admiral Charles Saunders signing for the British.