Knox narrowly avoided being killed in 1759 when a French soldier's musket twice misfired, and he went on to fight in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, where he performed in one of the most devastating volleys in military history.

The 43rd were initially intended to support the Earl of Loudon's operation against Louisbourg but this expedition never took place as a result of a combination of poor weather conditions and a strong French naval contingent.

While surveying the Montmorency Falls on 24 August Knox's journal records how he narrowly avoided being shot when a French soldier's musket misfired.

A French-speaking officer, (perhaps Donald MacDonald), fooled the sentry guarding the track, and by morning ten battalions of British troops had formed up on the Plains of Abraham.

[5] When the British finally returned fire, Knox describes how they did so with "great calmness" and how the resulting discharge was as close and heavy as any performed.

[8] With insufficient time to entrench, Murray, like Montcalm, decided to go on the offensive and on 28 April 1760 he marched his troops out of the city to do battle with a superior French force.

[9] Murray thought his best chance was to attack the French before they had time to form up; this tactic proved successful at first, due in part to the more numerous British artillery.

[12] It was around this time that Knox, now residing in Gloucester on half-pay, wrote his two-volume book An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America for the Years 1757, 1758, 1759 and 1760, published in London in 1769.

[12] The work, a composite of Knox's own diary, official documents and operational orders, is today considered one of the most important and complete account of these campaigns.