Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe.

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

What most Canadian know of James Wolfe is probably limited to the circumstances of his death, but, Stephen Brumwell, a self-described “‘independent’ historian working outside the academic mainstream,” makes it clear that the man who gained immortality with his death on the Plains of Abraham was “a household name in Britain and North America alike” even before he was appointed by King George II to command the massive 1759 expedition against Quebec. Wolfe was “the first truly transatlantic celebrity,” [author’s italics] Brumwell writes, and in this enthralling, scrupulously researched, and clearly reasoned biography, he tells how this fame was earned.

It is essentially a military history, since Wolfe’s short life was one of soldiering; he became an ensign at 15 and “By the age of just twenty-one he had already served through six campaigns and fought in four pitched battles.” His story takes us to the War of the Austrian Succession, the tragic suppression of the highland Scots, and the Seven Years’ War in North America. What we learn of the personal side of the man comes from letters he wrote regularly to his mother and to journals and correspondence of men who served under him. Much evidence is presented of Wolfe’s concern for his soldiers, of the boost he gave to the careers of young officers whose merits he recognized, and his skill at training and motivating men. Frequently, Brumwell notes some subsequent criticism of Wolfe and, with extensive documentation, usually exposes the charges as unwarranted. More than half the book deals with Wolfe’s two expeditions to Canada, and the siege of Quebec is recounted in great detail from military reports, letters, cartoons, personal journals, and contemporary newspapers. There are illustrations and maps, but there is no bibliography.

Sadly, the final chapter, “Wolfe’s Dust,” tells of nasty squabbling afterward about who deserves the glory for what. The strategy of ascending the cliff to the Plains of Abraham, for instance, was an idea for which many claimed credit. The author makes it dramatically clear that the credit belongs to James Wolfe alone.