sourced story
13 September 1759Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Britain defeats France at the Plains of Abraham

Wolfe and Montcalm both die as Quebec falls in a battle lasting about an hour

On the timeline · around 13 September 1759 · British North AmericaContact and New FranceBritish North AmericaBritain defeats France at the Plains of Abraham150015501600165017001750

Quick facts

British commander
General James Wolfe (killed)
French commander
Marquis de Montcalm (mortally wounded)
Landing point
L'Anse-au-Foulon
Outcome
Quebec surrendered to Britain

What happened

After Britain's capture of the fortress of Louisbourg in 1758 opened the St Lawrence to British ships, General James Wolfe brought an invasion force to besiege Quebec through the summer of 1759. On the night of 12 to 13 September, British troops scaled the cliffs at L'Anse-au-Foulon, a lightly defended point about 3 kilometres upstream from the city, and by 4 a.m. had landed an advance force and formed up on the plateau known as the Plains of Abraham. The Marquis de Montcalm, commanding French regulars, militia, and First Nations allies, chose to attack rather than wait for reinforcements; the battle itself lasted roughly an hour. Wolfe was shot and died on the field as the French began to break; Montcalm was wounded and died the next morning. Quebec surrendered days later, and the French never recaptured it.

Why it matters

The battle marked the effective end of French military control over the St Lawrence valley and set up the 1763 Treaty of Paris, in which France ceded nearly all its North American territory to Britain, reshaping the demographic and political future of the continent around an English-speaking empire with a large French-speaking minority.

How we know

British and French military dispatches, casualty returns, and eyewitness accounts of Wolfe's and Montcalm's deaths, summarized by the Canadian Encyclopedia, form the basis for the battle's sequence and outcome; the short, decisive character of the engagement is well corroborated across contemporary sources.

Sources

See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.

Part of a timelineHistory of Canada38 events · From the first peoples of the Americas and a Norse camp in Newfoundland to Confederation, the railway, two world wars, and a reckoning with the residential-school systemView all →