On Exhibition
On July 18, 1756, Wolfe, then a lieutenant colonel, took time from his regimental duties to write a letter to his friend Thomas Townshend. Earlier, Townshend had asked the erudite colonel to advise his younger brother, Henry Townshend, on what books to read to prepare for a career in the army. In his three-page reply, Wolfe laid out a comprehensive course of reading that included twenty-six specific works as well as several general themes, knowledge of which would make the young ensign “a very considerable Person in his Profession.”
Drawn wholly from The Society of the Cincinnati’s Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection, this exhibition features a contemporary edition of every work Wolfe recommended. The titles range from classics such as Caesar's Commentaries to the latest pocket-sized field manual. After his untimely death, James Wolfe's own ideas on war were compiled and published in a book titled General Wolfe's Instructions to Young Officers that was read widely in Great Britain and America. |
The exhibition is on
view through February 7, 2009.
Image credits:
(1) Major General Wolfe. Who, at the Expence of his Life, Purchas’d Immortal Honour for His Country and Planted, with his Own Hand, the British Laurel in the Inhospitable Wilds of North America, by the Reduction of Quebec, Septr. 13th 1759. Engraving by Richard Purcell after F. Turin (London: Printed by Eliz. Bakewell & Hen. Parker ..., [ca. 1776]). The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection.
(2) Puysegégur, Jacques François de Chastenet, marquis de. Art de la guerre: par principes et par règles, 1749. The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection.
Maj. Gen. James Wolfe is remembered as the hero of Quebec who died in the decisive battle that won Canada for Great Britain in 1759. He was in many ways the ideal soldier of the age of Enlightenment who combined great skill and bravery on the battlefield with a scholar’s understanding of the military arts. His example inspired not only the men under his command, but also the next generation of British and American officers who would find themselves on opposite sides during the Revolutionary War.