Monday, August 13, 2018

Hand-Drawn Maps of the Battle of Quebec

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has a great story about one of the treasures of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The story explains that the Museum holds in its archives hand-drawn battle-maps, made by the British Army after their victory on the Plains of Abraham in 1759. A great video, explaining the map and some of its details can be found in the article linked to above.

In short, the maps were probably drawn as a report from the British Army back to London about the events of the battle. Such post-action maps were, apparently, typical. This one, shows the site of Quebec City including some features which are still present, such as the walls of the city. The map also shows the location of the various French and British armies at the battle and how they were arrayed to fight.

I had a hard time finding quality images of these maps anywhere, so the ones below are screen-caps taken from the CBC video and website.


This image, which for some reason is somewhat dark, shows a partially zoomed in image of the map. You can see the British formations in red and the French in blue. You can also make out geographic features like hills, and the formidable cliffs the British had to climb for their attack. The walls of the Citadel of Quebec can be seen in the east and a number of roads, some of which remain in use today. 



Here is a more zoomed out image of the same map shown above. It shows a legend, but the image is too low quality to read it. 


This image above is a close-up of the image of the armies lined up for battle.

One of the details that seems most interesting about this map is that it was donated to the Museum anonymously. Who had such a fascinating historic document in their possession for all those years without anybody knowing--such that the donor could be anonymous?

From what I can tell, the maps--which are hugely significant in Canadian history--are gorgeous, but they are not on display for the public. Apparently, they are too fragile and so remain a hidden treasure of the Museum. Alas...




No comments:

Post a Comment