Arnold's March to Quebec

ARNOLD'S MARCH TO QUEBEC

ARNOLD'S MARCH TO QUEBEC. In the summer of 1775 Colonel Benedict Arnold went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and laid before Commander in Chief George Washington a plan for attacking Canada. Washington was sympathetic. He assigned a classic route of attack, by way of Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu River, to General Richard Montgomery. Washington had just heard of another passage, by way of the Kennebec and Chaudière Rivers, and he assigned this route to Arnold. The journey through the Maine wilderness was one of the most taxing treks of the American Revolution and proved Arnold's tenacity and leadership abilities. On 19September, Arnold's command left Newburyport, Massachusetts, and went by sea to the Kennebec. There U.S. forces provided two hundred greenwood boats. These bateaux proved ill-equipped to handle the rushing waters of the Kennebec, but Arnold persisted. Arnold also persisted in his march up the Dead River, where he endured ice, snowstorms, and insufficient food and clothing. He continued the march even after one of his majors, Roger Enos, turned back with a fourth of the army. On 28 October, Arnold and his men arrived at the divide between the St. Lawrence and Atlantic watersheds. Arnold plunged ahead with an advance guard while the remainder of his troops were reduced to eating dogs and shoe leather. At Sertigan, Arnold arranged for supplies that refreshed his exhausted detachment so that they were able to go down the Chaudière and reach the St. Lawrence on 9November 1775.

In the meantime, Montgomery had reached Montreal, but Arnold went on across the St. Lawrence and was in front of Quebec before Montgomery arrived. Guy Carleton, the British commander at Montreal, evacuated his troops and got into Quebec before Montgomery could join Arnold on 2 December. Carleton had twelve hundred men, while the combined American forces numbered scarcely one thousand. Nevertheless, in a blinding snowstorm Montgomery and Arnold assaulted Quebec on the night of 31 December 1775. The effort failed, and Montgomery was killed. Arnold was wounded and soon thereafter was promoted to brigadier general.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hatch, Robert McConnell. Thrust for Canada: The American Attempt on Quebec in 1775©1776. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979.

Martin, James Kirby. Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

Roberts, Kenneth, ed. March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold's Expedition. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1938.

Randolph G. Adams / f. b.

See also Burgoyne's Invasion ; Ticonderoga, Capture of .