Retreat of Montcalm in Quebec city

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Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran

February 28, 1712 to September 14, 1759

General Montcalm was sent to Quebec in 1756 as the commander of French troops in North America during the French and Indian War. He was to be one of those rare generals whose men loved him as well as respecting him. His early campaigns against the British were major successes. He captured and destroyed Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1756. His victory at Fort William Henry in 1757 was a military and personal victory. He led the French forces to victory at the Battle of Carillon, facing and defeating a British army five times the size. It was considered his greatest victory.

Later actions at Quebec were less successful and his army was defeated on the Plains of Abraham (near Quebec City) by the British under James Wolfe, but only after repelling the initial British landing at Montmorency Falls several days before. Outnumbered and without Lévis' division, the battle lasted only 15 minutes outside the city's fortress. Wolfe fell on the Plains, and Montcalm died the day after the battle of his wounds (he had been shot in the abdomen), on September 14, 1759, four days before the British entered Quebec. He was buried in the convent of the Ursuline nuns in Quebec, supposedly in a hole caused by the British shelling.