The
Affair Went Altogether Against Us, And We Had To Retreat Back Into
The Town.
When I got back to my quarters, I there found poor
Hector Munro, who not being able to walk, had been carried in,
owning to a wound he had received in the lower part of the belly,
through which his bowels were coming out!
He had his senses about
him, and reminded me of our conversation just before the battle.
He was taken to the Hotel Dieu, where he died the next morning, in
great agony. When I first saw the French soldiers I thought them a
dirty, ragged set - their clothing was originally white. Many of
them, particularly in the 'Regiment de la Reine,' had a bit of
blue ribbon to the buttonhole of their coat, with a little white
shell fixed to it, which they called 'Papa,' and this, it seems,
was a mark of honour for having distinguished themselves on some
former occasion. I, at first, mistook them for Freemasons! After
the battle of the Plains of Abraham, on the 13th September, fifty-
nine, when a great many of the French lay killed and wounded on
the field (we killed seventy-two officers alone) it was horrid to
see the effect of blood and dust on their white coats! They lay
there as thick as a flock of sheep, and just as they had fallen,
for the main body had been completely routed off the ground, and
had not an opportunity of carrying away their dead and wounded
men.
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