| INDEX →→ I. The Founders → II. The Settlers → III. The New Nation → IV. Appendix →→ TERMS OF USE © Northern Blue Publishing. A licence is required for institutional or commercial use of any material in these pages. Please read the Terms of Use. |
2. Battles of the American Revolution
From Canadian History Portal - HCO
| D. British North America →→ 1. American Revolution Background → 2. American Revolution Battles → 3. Coming of the Loyalists → 4. Rise of Montreal → 5. Province of Upper Canada → 6. War of 1812 → 7. Northern and Western Exploration →→ E. Conflict and Change |
| Battles - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Milestones | Student Activities | Student Projects |
The Americans Take up Arms
Contents |
In May 1775, delegates from the Thirteen Colonies met in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. The Congress continued to adopt an outwardly conciliatory approach.
In July of that year, at the urging of John Dickinson, the Congress issued the Olive Branch Petition that humbly addressed George III and blamed the injustices on his uncaring and unknowing ministers. At the same time, the Congress produced a Declaration of Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms that foreshadowed future events.
The invasion was to proceed in two wings: up the Hudson River/Lake Champlain Route led by Philip Schuyler and Richard Montgomery, and up the Kennebec and Chaudière Rivers to Quebec led by Benedict Arnold. Schuyler and Montgomery were to take Montreal and then join Arnold at Quebec.
On October 21, Congress sent an intriguing invitation to the people of Quebec to join them in their revolution as the fourteenth colony. The letter was printed in Philadelphia by Fleury Mesplet, later editor of La Gazette littéraire de Montréal. It was a serious offer. After all, they shared many of the same grievances because of the domination of the British. However, there was one vital difference. The people of Quebec had the 1774 Quebec Act that many saw as their Magna Carta. It extended their boundaries, revived both the seigneurial and civil law systems, as opposed to British common law, and guaranteed the worship and practice of Roman Catholicism. The British had been induced to pass the Act, in fact, to win the loyalty of the population so that the Empire would not lose both its North American possessions.
The Americans Invade Quebec
 |
 |
 |
It appeared that the Americans could capture Quebec if they seized the initiative. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold's combined force of eighty-five hastily recruited New Englander farmers, surprised the British and captured Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775. They took Crown Point the following day. The one British ship on Lake Champlain was captured, so the way was clear for an unimpeded invasion of Quebec.
In response to the threat, Guy Carleton proclaimed martial law on June 9, and suspended administration of the Québec Act.
Ethan Allen over-extended himself and failed in both his efforts to take St. Johns in May and Montreal in September. At the Battle of Montréal on September 25, 1775, Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, led an attack on the city with 300 sympathetic Canadians. They are soundly defeated By Carleton's loyalists. Ethan Allen and 35 others are captured, and spend the rest of the War in a British prison.
Montgomery then organized a more substantial expedition by way of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. Montgomery's force took St. Johns, vital to the defense of Quebec, on November 2, with a force that out-numbered the defenders six to one. Ten days later, the citizens of Montreal signed a Letter capitulating to Montgomery. The way was totally clear for the final assault and capture of Quebec.
Montgomery had originally intended to winter in Montreal and begin the attack on Quebec the following spring. However, he received word that Benedict Arnold, lacking a naval contingent, had already embarked on an overland expedition from Boston up the Kennebec River through the wilds of Maine and then down the Chaudiere River.
Devastated by the journey, Arnold arrived at Quebec with only seven hundred men, fewer than half of what he had started out with. Lacking artillery and exhausted, he could not take Quebec by surprise. He took his forces across the St. Lawrence River onto the Plains of Abraham, but Carleton and his fellow British defenders declined to do battle. So Arnold waited for the arrival of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery who was invading up the Hudson River via Lake Champlain and Montreal.
 |
 |
Carleton Defeats the Americans
Two weeks later, Montgomery arrived with three hundred men plus artillery, and by mid-December 1775 the two invading wings of the Army of the Continental Congress were drawn up before Quebec. On December 10, they set up a battery of artillery 700 yards (640 m) from the walls of Quebec, but the guns did little damage.
The fortress of Quebec was undermanned, held by only a small garrison of 100 British regulars under the command of Major General Sir Guy Carleton and Colonel Allen Maclean. They were supported by several hundred poorly-armed Canadien militia with muskets and bayonets. Quebec's fortifications were in disrepair, but Carleton had erected wooden barricades and blockhouses to protect the city gates.
Montgomery and Arnold knew they had to attack quickly. The option of a long siege was not viable as the spring promised the arrival of British reinforcements. They had no proper shelter for the oncoming winter. Smallpox and other diseases had weakened their ranks. So despite their inferior numbers, Montgomery and the Americans decided to mount a surprise attack on Quebec under cover of darkness and a blinding snowstorm that began on December 30, 1775. Arnold would strike at the northern end of the Lower Town, while Montgomery would attack at the opposite end.
The Lower Town Attacked
At 2:00 am on December 31, 1775, muster was called in the Continental camp and the attack was soon underway. The plan was for Montgomery to take his 300 New Yorkers and attack the city along the river from the south and west, while Arnold would take his 600 men, and attack from the north and east. The two forces would join in the middle of the business district in Lower Town and then move up into the walled city itself.
The attack was doomed from the start. Carleton had been warned by a deserter of the American plans, and fortified accordingly.
At about 3:00 am, a British watch officer saw flashing lights on the Plains of Abraham that might have been lanterns. He sounded the alarm and the garrison stood to arms at 4:00 am, just as Montgomery fired his rockets, signalling that he was in position and launching the assault. Seconds later, firing began as parties of Canadiens, serving with the rebels, started diversionary attacks.
Down by the river, Montgomery led his 300 men along a narrow path across deep snowdrifts and around giant blocks of ice under the Cape Diamond Bastion. When they came to a barricade at Près-de-Ville, on the west side of Lower Town, they sawed their way through two wooden stockades. Catching sight of the first house in Lower Town, Montgomery shouted “Quebec is ours!” and charged ahead.
But waiting inside a blockaded house were about 30 Canadien militia led by Captain Chabot and Lieutenant Alexandre Picard, with a few British sailors under Captain Barnsfare. As the Americans approached up the street, they fired off their cannon, loaded with grapeshot, instantly killing Montgomery and several of his officers. About a dozen more were injured, unable to fire back, their muskets useless in the snowstorm. Montgomery's next in command Lt. Colonel Donald Campbell immediately ordered a retreat, and the men fled back towards the palisade. Most of the storming party was killed or wounded; only Aaron Burr and a few others escaped unhurt.
 |
 |
North of the city, Arnold and his main body of 600 troops left the suburb of St. Roch and marched on Quebec, unaware of Montgomery's death and the failure of his attack. Snowdrifts slowed their way and snowdust coated their musket powder. They lost a cannon in a snow-filled ditch, and blundered into a maze of warehouses, docks and blind alleys. Finally they reached a barricade across the Rue Sault-au-Matelot, where the British and Canadiens started firing from the walls above. Arnold fell when a musket ball tore into his ankle, but his followers continued up the street toward a second barricade. There, they hesitated, waiting for reinforcements. Arnold let himself be carried from the fight, leaving Captain Daniel Morgan in command. Morgan overran the barricade after some heavy fighting and he and his men raced through Lower Town, pouring over another unmanned barricade. He was ready to continue toward Upper Town, but was persuaded to halt and wait for Montgomery as planned.
By dawn, with no word from Montgomery, Morgan ordered his men forward. But the wait had cost the Americans their advantage and Carleton had regrouped his defenders. As the Americans now tried to move toward Upper Town, they found themselves under constant fire from the Canadien militia commanded by Colonel Noel Voyer, who were stationed in the surrounding buildings. As the Americans advanced carrying ladders, and occupied a house, Charles Charland of the Canadien militia dragged a ladder against the house. John Nairne and Francois Dambourgès, of the Royal Highland Emigrants, led a party of Highlanders and Canadien militia up the ladder and into the house, expelling the rebels, and opening fire on the Americans in the street below. At 10:00 am, under attack from all sides and trapped by British regulars led by Colonel Henry Caldwell coming up on their rear, the Americans surrendered, ending the battle.
Eventually 426 Americans were captured or surrendered. Morgan himself refused to surrender even when completely surrounded. He dared the British to shoot him, but his men pleaded with him until he finally turned his sword over to a French priest, rather than surrender it to the British. In all, the rebels lost between sixty and one hundred killed and wounded. Carleton reported his own losses as one British naval officer and five French Canadian militia killed, with four British soldiers and 15 militia wounded.
Arnold was able to retreat with his remaining men to the Plains of Abraham, where they suffered from hunger, cold, and smallpox. But mass desertions of his men after their enlistments expired on January 1, 1776 took their toll, and Arnold was relieved of overall command by Brig. General David Wooster, who arrived with 2,000 reinforcements in March, and was sent upstream to command the garrison at Montreal. The arrival of HMS Surprise on May 6, 1776, followed by Maj. General John Burgoyne leading an army of over 4,000 troops spelled the end of the American invasion.
On June 18, 1776, General Benedict Arnold was the last American to withdraw from Canada, ending America's actions in Canada for the remainder of the war.
 |
 |
Arnold Retreats
In May 1776, the British ships arrived at Quebec bearing 10 000 able bodied troops. Arnold's Americans beat a hasty retreat up the St. Lawrence, burning Montreal as they left on June 15 (the citizens put out the fire). Carleton might have taken the entire American force by cutting them off at St Johns. However, he delayed his advance that in turn allowed the Americans to slip past him and down Lake Champlain to safety. Carleton still might have taken them with a vigorous pursuit. However, he waited until October building boats. He did take Crown Point but found Fort Ticonderoga too difficult. However, the invasion of Quebec had been turned back and the colony kept out of American hands.
By the end of August, George III rejected the Olive Branch Petition and declared the colonies to be in open rebellion. Two months later he declared his belief that the colonists were aiming at independence. Already fighting had broken out. The first shots had been fired on April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts when Governor Gage attempted to seize a cache of munitions. Two months later in June, British troops tried to dislodge American fortifications at Bunker Hill overlooking Boston. British General William Howe eventually prevailed after a series of frontal assaults but not before losing over forty percent of his almost 2 000 regulars. In this first formal engagement of the Revolutionary War, the British would suffer their heaviest causalities. The British were now convinced that they were involved in a war and not a police action against a small band on rebels as they had at first thought.
One side and then the other won battles as the Revolutionary War went on for eight years. The British, under Sir William Howe, took Long Island in August 1776. Two small American victories occurred at Trenton and Princeton in late December 1776 and early January 1776. In September, Howe captured Philadelphia. Washington and the Americans suffered further setbacks at Brandywine and Germantown and decided to winter at Valley Forge.
The low point for the Americans occurred during the winter of 1777. As Tom Paine wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country."
Valley Forge would forever be equated with suffering and grim determination as Washington and his men struggled to hang on. Ill equipped and inadequately clothed, many deserted. It was only Washington's iron will and personal example that held the rag-tag army together. That, plus growing support from the French.
The Tide Turns
The tide began to turn at Saratoga in October 1777 when English General Johnny Burgoyne was forced to surrender his army. That was a decisive victory in that it convinced the French to come in on the side of the Americans, and French naval power would ultimately prove invaluable. After Saratoga, the British withdrew from Philadelphia in June 1778.
The war ebbed and flowed, but the outcome was ultimately determined by sea power and the assistance of France, led by the Marquis de Lafayette. Fighting took place in the South, the Midwest, and on the water. The final battle took place at Yorktown, Virginia. British General Lord Cornwallis had invaded Virginia, ravaging the countryside and burning towns. In late summer, he retired to Yorktown to await reinforcements.
Lafayette wrote to Washington that their combined forces could trap Cornwallis. Washington, making a quick forced march south from New York, conceived a brilliant strategy. The French navy, under Admiral De Grasse bottled up Chesapeake Bay and brought over troops to Yorktown. Washington and another French general, Rochambeau, began a siege of the city in late August. The combined force, with the French actually in a majority, numbered 16 000 men, with three-dozen French warships anchored in the water. Cornwallis realized the inevitable and surrendered on October 19, 1781.
The War, for all intents and purposes, was over. The British saw it as far too costly. Lord North resigned and was replaced by Lord Rockingham in March 1782 and the new administration began peace negotiations.
The Treaty of Paris
Those talks concluded with the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1783. By the Treaty, the British recognized the independence of the new nation of the United States having the Mississippi River as its western border. However, a number of terms would lead to later conflicts. Boundaries in both the West and the Northeast were left vague which would lead to future difficulties. The Treaty stipulated that the Loyalist property rights were to be restored by the United States but that never happened. Nor did Britain fully remove itself from its military forts in the Northwest. Fisheries would long remain an area of contention between the United States and Canada. However, significantly a new nation, one founded on liberal, democratic, republican values now existed on Canada's southern doorstep.
| Battles - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Milestones | Student Activities | Student Projects |
| D. British North America →→ 1. American Revolution Background → 2. American Revolution Battles → 3. Coming of the Loyalists → 4. Rise of Montreal → 5. Province of Upper Canada → 6. War of 1812 → 7. Northern and Western Exploration →→ E. Conflict and Change |
del.icio.us
digg
facebook
googlebookmark
reddit
stumbleupon
yahoo
