Born in 1685, Edward Wolfe was commissioned as second lieutenant of marines on 10 March 1701–2. He served in the Netherlands under Marlborough, and in Scotland during the rebellion of 1715. He was adjutant-general in the expedition to Carthagena in 1740. On his return he was made inspector of marines. On 25 April 1745 he was given the colonelcy of the 8th foot, and on 4 June he was promoted major-general. He was employed for a short time under Wade during the rebellion of that year. He died, a lieutenant-general, on 26 March 1759, six months before his son. ‘Extremely upright and benevolent,’ he seems to have had no great force of character.
The childhood of James Wolfe was spent at Westerham in a house now known as Quebec house, which his parents took soon after his birth, and there he began a lifelong friendship with George Warde of Squerries Court. About 1737 his family removed to Greenwich, and he was sent to a school there, kept by the Rev. Samuel Swinden. In July 1740 he persuaded his father to let him go with him to the West Indies; but he fell ill before the expedition started, and was left behind.
On 3 Nov. 1741 he was given a commission as second lieutenant in his father's regiment of marines, then numbered the 44th foot. From this he passed, on 27 March 1742, to an ensigncy in the 12th foot (Duroure's), with which he embarked for Flanders a month afterwards. He was quartered at Ghent till February 1743, and then set out with the army on a long march to the Main. He soon found ‘my strength is not so great as I imagined;’ and he shared a horse with his brother Edward, an ensign in the same regiment.
At the battle of Dettingen on 27 June the regiment was in the middle of the first line, and was the one which suffered most. Wolfe wrote an excellent account of the battle to his father as soon as he had recovered from illness, brought on by fatigue. He was acting adjutant, though only sixteen, and his horse was shot; ‘so I was obliged to do the duty of an adjutant all that and the next day on foot, in a pair of heavy boots.’ He was commissioned as adjutant on 2 July, and promoted lieutenant on the 14th.
He spent the winter of 1743–4 at Ostend with his regiment. On 3 June 1744 he obtained a company in the 4th foot (Barrel's), and served with it in the futile campaign of that year, under Wade. In October he lost his brother, ‘an honest and a good lad;’ he was now the only child of his parents. He was in garrison at Ghent during the winter, and his regiment did not join the army till after the battle of Fontenoy. On 12 June 1745 he was appointed brigade-major, and for the next three years he served on the staff. In September he accompanied the regiments which were recalled to England, and sent to join Wade at Newcastle, to oppose the advance of the young Pretender.
After the retreat of the latter from Derby, Wade's army marched under Hawley upon Stirling, and was beaten at Falkirk. Wolfe was present, and afterwards went with the army to Aberdeen. During their stay there he was sent by Hawley to Mrs. Gordon, whose house Hawley was occupying, and she has left a vivid but not quite trustworthy account of his visits and of the plunder of her property (Lyon in Mourning, iii. 169, &c.)
He was on the staff at Culloden, and described the battle in a letter next day, but said nothing of his own share in it. His regiment was the one which suffered most, losing one-third of its men. According to an often-repeated story, Wolfe was told by the Duke of Cumberland, after the battle, to shoot a wounded highlander, ‘who seemed to smile defiance of them;’ he refused, and from that day declined in the duke's favour (Anti-Jacobin Review, 1802, p. 125). This last statement is certainly unfounded, and the rest perhaps equally so. Wolfe's name was not mentioned in the earliest version of the story, which is to be found in a letter from the Rev. James Hay of Inverness to Bishop Forbes. His authority for it is, ‘It was told by the sogars.’ The highlander was Charles Fraser of Inverallochy (Lyon in Mourning, ii. 305, iii. 56; Mackenzie, Hist. of the Frasers of Lovat, p. 515). Among the ‘Cumberland Papers’ at Windsor there are several letters to him, probably found on his body at Culloden.
Wolfe went back to the Netherlands in January 1746–7, and was brigade-major of Mordaunt's brigade in the campaign which followed. He was wounded at Laeffelt, and is said to have been personally thanked by the duke for his services. He went home for the winter, but rejoined the army in March, and remained till the end of the year with the troops quartered near Breda to guard the Dutch frontier. On his return to England he saw a good deal of Miss Elizabeth Lawson, the eldest daughter of Sir Wilfred Lawson, and the niece of General Mordaunt, his late brigadier. He formed a strong attachment for her, but his parents were adverse, and the lady herself refused him. At the end of four years he gave up hope. She died unmarried in March 1759.
