Sean Walker
October 17th, 2016
Dr. Tracey Penny Light
HIST 1120
A Look at a Journal of the Expedition up the River St. Lawrence
Written by the Sargent-Major of Gen. Hopfon’s Grenadiers
By: Sean Walker
As you can probably guess the soldiers that were alive during the time of the good Sargent-Major[1] had quite a lot to worry about, things ranging from starvation to being scalped by an Indian warrior[2]. So it is understandable that the soldiers of the time, Especially the ones who had men under his command, to sound callous the thoughts of his fallen comrades and have a rather blasé approach to the casualty statistics that would be brought to him. This callousness can be seen rather clearly in the parts of his journal where he recites the list of losses from when a group of Louisburg Grenadiers went foraging and he reports that “we had two kill d and scalp d, belonging to the 22d Regiment”[3]. Although The Sargent-Major may seem heartless to many, he does have compassion for his men as shown in the account he gave of when the French sent 5 fire ships down to attack the fleet “thank God, they did no Damage.”[4] in the beginning of the book.
One of the main reasons that they have different attitudes towards things like death is it was simply a different time, with different priorities. For example, the priorities of a Upper-lower class mother or Lower-middle class mother of the present day might be for her kids to do good in school, maybe get them into a College or University, and generally hope that they hopefully make something of themselves one day. While a mother of the same class bracket in the time of the conquest would probably hope for her son to follow in his father’s footsteps, get married, have kids, inherit the family business or start in a trade of some kind, hope that he doesn’t get sent off to war. For the daughter it was a bit different but generally follows the same path, get married, have kids, live a good life. The differences in priorities for soldiers are about as noticeably different as the ones for the aforementioned mothers. We must also remember that the author, who as previously stated was a Sargent-Major in service to his royal majesty King George II. So much like anyone in a position of power, especially a member of the military, would have to do today, he may he may have had to make some tough calls that would have put his men at risk, he would also have to view the battlefield with an objective mind, being careful to not make any decision that might keep one of his friends alive but kill 50 others.
While we may never know exactly why the Sargent-Major decided to write this journal, there are a couple of reasons that we can think of and guess why he did decide to write this journal. The one theory that jumps to the front of my mind when thinking about this is that he wished to have something that would tell of his adventures, another theory that comes to mind Is that he may have written it so that there would be something to give to his family that would tell of his exploits and maybe his death if he should perish in the coming battles. There are many things that this journal reveals about the time that it was written in. For example, it showed what a common foot soldier had to look forwards to when he went to battle if he ever got caught, was ever killed or injured, it shows us a unique perspective that is not tainted with some of the exaggeration you might find in the writings of a lieutenant or some other commissioned officer, in the writings of the Sargent-Major we find a” plain, straightforward story of Wolfe s
famous expedition”[5].
In review we see that soldiers had less compassion for their comrades than the soldiers of today have for theirs, but not without reason. It was a different time and they had different priorities, especially the commanding officers. We also saw what this document revealed about the time and allowed us to guess at why the good Sargent-Major has written this journal for the review and analysis of future generations of historians. For this I think that we can say we owe the Sargent-Major a great thanks, so thank you Sargent-Major, I hope you lived a long and good life after your service.
Bibliography
Grenadiers, S. O. (1759). A journal of the expedition up the river St. Lawrence containing a true and most particular account of the transactions of the fleet and army under the command of Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe, from the time of their embarkation at Louisbourg ’til after the surrender of Quebeck. Boston: Printed and sold by Fowle and Draper, at their printing-office in Marlborough-Street.
[1] As there was no name given for the author, I will refer to him as simply The Sargent-Major
[2] I will be using the term Indian to refer to the Indigenous population of Canada to go along with the document in question, nothing untoward is meant through the use of the word.
[3] Grenadiers, S. O. (1759). A journal of the expedition up the river St. Lawrence containing a true and most particular account of the transactions of the fleet and army under the command of Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe, from the time of their embarkation at Louisbourg ’til after the surrender of Quebeck. Boston: Printed and sold by Fowle and Draper, at their printing-office in Marlborough-Street. From page. 492, lines 4-5
[4] From page. 491, line 21
[5] From page. 489, lines 7-8