"Brave Wolfe", also known as "The Battle of Montcalm and Wolfe", "The Battle of Quebec" and "The Death of General Wolfe" is a song celebrating the hero of Quebec, often found in America though not reported in Britain. The Battle of Quebec took place on September 13, 1759. It proved to be a decisive event in the history of North America. In 1755 the Acadians had been driven out of Nova Scotia and a year later the Seven Years War broke out in Europe and elsewhere. Britain did no do very well at first but by 1759 Louisville, Fort Frontenac & Fort Duquesne had been taken by Britain. Montcalm had pulled back to Quebec for a last stand. The British fleet under Wolfe had laid siege to Quebec from below on the St Lawrence River. British scouts finally discovered a narrow way up the cliffs to the city and on the night of September 12th about 5000 men secretly took small boats down the river and scaled the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham. The battle was over quickly and both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed. James Wolfe was born in 1727 and commissioned into the army at the age of fourteen. In 1759 as a major-general he was sent by William Pitt to Canada in command of an expeditionary force whose task was to take Quebec. The ascent of the Heights of Abraham, the defeat of the French on the plain before Quebec and the death of Wolfe in the hour of victory, have become a part of the national consciousness. The first known appearance of the song is in a broadside of 1759. It appears in The Digital Tradition website (2 versions) and as #961 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It was printed in Laws' American Balladry from British Broadsides (1957), Silverman's Folk Song Encyclopedia (1975), Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America (1960), Seeger's Folk Songs of Peggy Seeger (1964) and Lomax's Best Loved American Folk Songs. It was recorded by Ian & Sylvia, Mark O’Connor, Martin Carthy with Dave Swarbrick, Alan Mills, Carolyn Hester and The Watersons.