American History Hit - America's Invasion of Canada

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

'Canada ought to be the 14th colony' was a view held by many American revolutionaries. In the winter of 1775, Benedict Arnold led an incredible (if doomed) mission to make it happen.We're delighted to be joined again by Maj. Jonathan D. Bratten, historian for the Maine National Guard.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. They have come so far through the sodden tangled forests of Maine, pushing leaking boats along flooded rivers,

through weeks of starvation and illness when shoe leather became a meal. Now, standing in snow, a blizzard howling around them, they looked to the steep barricades of Quebec, exhausted eyes staring into the pre-dawn darkness, everyone aware of the knife's edge of history they teeter upon. All the months of saccharacter. A hardship, the resolve, converging on this one desperate assault. This is their chance to seize the city and try and make Canada the 14th American colony.

They move quietly, stealthily, undetected in the snow. Soon enough, muskets and cannon roar. The battle for Quebec is underway. Greetings one in all. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman. It's sometimes tough to ground your feet solidly in the early history of the American Revolution. So let's review a few events. Everybody knows about Lexington and Concord, Spring of 75, shot herd round the world. Bunker Hill, that British victory that comes at such a bloody cost follows in June.

July, George Washington arrives to organize the Continental Army surrounding Boston, the siege of Boston, and that stalemate lasts until the following March, when the British finally evacuate under threat of American artillery. That siege is the backdrop of a remarkably grueling event that often escapes notice, certainly when we were youngsters, locking in the basics of the revolution. In the fall months of 1775, there was a critical and pivotal scene-setter of so much which comes later. It involved none other than the infamous Benedict Arnold, though this is the early heroic Arnold, the one so full of vim and vigor, hell bent on victory against the tyrants. It is the American invasion of Quebec, Canada.

Today, our peaceful ally and primary trading partner to the north, which might be the reason we never hear much about it, happened in the fall and winter of 1775, and today we have just the man to explain it all. Jonathan Bratton is a major in the main Army National Guard on this series. He has previously attacked the history of Bunker Hill, demystified George Washington's generaling, even took on the counterfactual. What if the British had won? All these and more you can find.

in our very lively backlogged wherever you get your podcasts, and please do. Hello, Jonathan Bratton. Welcome back to American History Hit. Let's do this again. I would love to dive into the Canadian campaign. Thanks so much, Don. This story divides in three parts. Preparation in March, the battle, and the aftermath.

All this takes place, a lot of it anyway, takes place in the woods of Maine, your home turf. Where did this notion come from? Why head north to Canada and specifically Quebec? and why in the world with winter looming? Phenomenal questions that really we need to ask ourselves all the time in nearly every war until after the Civil War, why go to Canada just sort of as a side show? There's almost like this urge inside American colonists at this point just like, well, Canada should be part of us. Remember, English colonists have been making war against Canada, and primarily before the British, the French, obviously, since we basically showed up. you know, Canada was the big boogeyman. So for these colonists in 1775, they'd grown up in the shadow of,

or taking part in the colonial wars, specifically the French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, where the British sees Canada. So a lot of people have cut their teeth there. There's this idea that Quebec should be the 14th colony. There are committees of safety that meet in Quebec and Nova Scotia. We should say that when we talk about Canada, we are referring to Quebec and Nova Scotia, which are two colonies that today comprise, you know, the greater part of eastern Canada, but split up into two colonies. So there's this idea that ideologically, Quebec is ripe for the picking to join this burgeoning revolution. There's also the idea that if we're going to get it, we've got to go now, right? You know, this is the time where the British are the weakest in 1775.

They have yet to send major reinforcements. They don't have a war-winning strategy yet. got to rely on that giant ocean right there to just slow everything down. So take advantage, strike while the iron is hot, and because Canada is rightfully, you know, should be American. It should be a 14th colony and then state, right? They basically are looking at this as one big North American Union, basically. And we have to remember, you know, we talk about the 13 colonies, the 13 colonies, there are about 31 to 33 British colonies in North America. You know, once you start looking at the Caribbean. And then once you go, oh, only, 13 out of those 32 or so rebelled, you know, it starts putting things into perspective.

What is important in Canada, Quebec is growing and it's small. Honestly, the biggest asset. And really, if you can knock out Quebec or if you can bring Quebec into the fold ideologically, hey, that's great. We have more people on our side who don't like the British. You know, who really doesn't like the British? The French, the French Canadians in Quebec. They're hoping for that.

There are a lot of French people there. I mean, there's tens of thousands of people that's an enormous population at this time. So, yeah, the Americans or the soon-to-be Americans are all thinking, gee, these people just hate the British. So let's just give them a reason to rise up against them. And that's kind of the seed of all of this thinking, isn't it? Yeah, and this is sort of a problem because, yes, the French in Canada don't love the English. However, it's not just French in Canada. There are a whole bunch of British who have arrived there since the...

at the end of the war in 1763. You have a whole bunch of different class issues about the peasants, the landowners, the gentry in the French class system, as well as the British class system. So you've got a bunch of different things going on inside Canada that really American policymakers, decision makers, military leaders don't quite fully understand. To them, Canada has just always been the boogeyman. That's like been in the background that they've been they and their parents and their grandparents, their great-grandparents have been fighting really ever since the beginning. But when you look at in the summer of 1775, really early summer, May to June, as Benedict Arnold completes a sort of cleanup of Lake Champlain after seizing Ticonderoga, what he gets is one of his intelligence

coup is that he seizes basically a list of all the British soldiers in North America. And with that, he and everyone else realizes, oh, there's not a lot of troops in Canada, oh, this should be easy. And if you take out Canada, you remove that avenue of approach that the British have to attack from the north. Sure. Let's talk about Benedict Arnold, an enigma of a guy. He has, as you say, distinguished himself early in the struggle. May 1775, you already mentioned it. He is the command dictated by Massachusetts to take a tiny force and seize Port Taekondoroga, which is at the bottom of Lake Champlain, very strategic place. He is the ideal military leader for this, bold and trepid, thinks outside the box. At this point, that's who Benedict Arnold is. He is. And he's also

a merchant, which means that he understands the sea. He understands logistics. He understands people. And he's pretty well loaded at this point. And the revolution will ensure that he loses his fortune really rapidly, which may cause him to be a little bit better since Congress doesn't really ever reimburse him because Congress is broke the entire war. That impulsive nature, which we're calling bold and intrepid, soon turns into a bit of hubris. And and a lot of other personality flaws, which take over and are his curse. I want to just really understand Taekondroga without getting too much in the weeds of it. This was, of course, the source of the artillery that ends up being posted in the Dorchester Heights over Boston Harbor

that later on will chase the British out of Boston. That was his plan, right? That was his understanding of, let's take Taekondroga for this reason. Not just for the ordinance that's inside it. Really, they're looking at Connecticut and Massachusetts. both commission Arnold and then also Ethan Allen to take Taekonduruga to remove a threat, essentially, to their Western borders, and then also to possibly look to having a route into Canada. So Taekonduroga is taken with a bit of foresight into, hey, if we wanted to, let's preserve some

options. Let's keep some options open if we ever want to go towards Canada, because there's a bunch of people thinking it should be part of the 14th. Sure. Well, it makes sense. It speaks to the whole chess game that's being played at this point, which is all New England. I mean, of course, everyone's involved in the discussions up and down the Eastern Seaboard, but the primary actions are all New England. If we can pin them down and take Canada, we're in pretty good shape for leveraging this whole situation. Washington agrees to Arnold's plan. I'm curious how Arnold presented this idea. So Arnold's actually a little bit sulky when he comes to Cambridge in the summer of 1775 because

he shows up and says basically like, hey, dad, look what I've got. I got this fort. I got these plans. I have this idea to invade Canada. I should go invade Canada. And Washington is like, yeah, cool, kid. I'm going to invade Canada. But I'm not sending you. So he actually sends on the main route, on the main avenue of approach. So essentially the Champlain to Richelieu River to St. Lawrence Corridor that runs south to north there is Brigadier General Richard Montgomery. He's a former British soldier, Irish-born, tons of experience. And he's leading a bunch of mostly New York troops, New York and a few New England troops in this route up towards Montreal in the fall, late summer fall of 1775. And they get bogged down almost immediately besieging the Fort St. Jean

on the edge of the Richelieu River, and they're just hung up there. While they're hung up, Arnold sort of sees this as his opportunity. He's like, hey, so I was looking at some old maps. And I have this other idea, what if we go for Quebec City through the main backcountry? And Washington goes, yeah, that seems like a great idea. I have very few troops. We'll get volunteers out of the army at Boston. So Arnold raises a force of about 1,200. Never gets really more than 15 to 1,800.

Not a large force if you are invading Canada. But Arnold believes that he has this secret backdoor route to Quebec City. No one will see him coming. No one expects it because you're going through, is described at the time, as a howling wilderness. It still is. I mean, the main back, you go to Baxter State Park. You know how much of a tangle that state is. It's extraordinary. And for those days, there's only water routes, right? That's the only way they're going to get up there. Yeah, so Maine at this point is very sparsely settled. You've got about 35,000 people spread out across really most of the lower half of the state. And this route that Arnold is proposing had only been recently mapped by a British engineer, John Montresor, who actually is still in America operating with the British Army in Boston, had already taken part in the Lexington and Concord expedition. In fact, we could do an entire podcast about John Montresor because he's one of these guys. who's just like at every single major event of the American Revolution and then documented it. But Montessor mapped it after the seizure of Canada in 1760 to 63, and he left a map. The problem is he left off about like 60 to 90 miles on that map.

So it is not complete. I don't know if he also left a note on the map. I don't think he did. But that was like, hey, bring extra food. I ate my shoes literally on the second time that I did this because, there's nothing there. Maine is a lot of wilderness, right? But this is a uniquely rough route. Once you go up the canaback, you leave the canneback, you have to cross over this area called the height of land. If you stand there and look up, well, you have to look up. And that's basically like the whole

sort of ascent, the beginning of this really arduous expedition into an area where there's just not a lot of game. There's not a lot of fish. So all those things that you think about with Maine, you know, lots of people go on vacation there. They're like, oh, I go hunting, I go fishing. What's wrong with them? Why couldn't they sustain it? Well, yeah, you try sustaining a 1,200 man force in the fall. So the obstacles that Arnold is facing are many, and then he's not fully aware of what he's undertaking. Yeah, and the first episode of this really is that they have to sail from Massachusetts. I mean, all of it is Massachusetts in these days, but they have to make an ocean crossing to the mouth of the Kennebec River, right? this is the first step in the process. Everything about this trip is insane, let's say challenging, to say the least.

Let's come back after the break and head into the wilderness with these men and see what happens. Welcome back. We're discussing with Major Jonathan Bratton, the attempted American invasion of Canada, fall of 1775. Jonathan, when Arnold and his men head into the wilderness, they'll have to journey about 300 miles, starting out from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Understand there's no state of Maine in these days. This is part of Massachusetts back then, right? Mid-September.

Where do they even begin to march in? As much as I hate to admit it, yes. Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820. The beginning of this is really at what is today historic Fort Western. So it's in Augusta, modern-day Augusta, Maine. When Arnold gets this crazy idea, hey, I'm going to invade Canada through Maine,

He puts in a massive order for like 300 bateau. Now, a batteau is, it runs the gamut of being a massive sort of flat bottom craft. We'll just summarize it as it is a handmade boat that is meant to carry cargo and personnel of original French design. He puts in an order for like two to 300 handmade bateau to this dude living in modern-day Gardner, Maine. This, you know, obviously is a lot of material that is a lot of material that is a lot of. needed for this, which obviously isn't on hand because no one just has, hey, I've got timber enough for 200 battoe. So obviously the wood is not seasoned. It is green. There are not enough nails. Anyone see where this could possibly go wrong? Yeah. So basically Arnold gets up here

after leaving, I think it's around September 26th or so, he leaves Newburyport. He gets up to Augusta area, gets to Fort Western. And so he starts fitting out the expedition essentially. Like getting the baton realizes there's not enough batteau and sort of trying to overcome the initial logistical difficulties before he sets off on this expedition. He believes it's a lot shorter a trip than it actually is. Is this because he has bad maps? Yeah, it's fundamentally because his map is about 60 to 90 miles too short. He does send off a scouting party. They do go ahead.

They run into logistical difficulties. They don't have enough food. They think they see the mountain that is sort of the last obstacle before descending down into Canada. They see the wrong mountain. You know, this is the most like cursed expedition ever. Well, not to mention, they're leaving in September, late September. I would know to say to Benedict Grono, are you crazy? This is going to take you right into the cold weather.

It's already getting cold in Maine at that point. It is. And they know this. They're not stupid. So Washington issues a 14-point order to Arnold before he leaves. And one of those is, hey, if the weather gets bad, you have to use your own judgment and say, you know, if it gets real bad, you've got to call it. You know, you've just got to go ahead and turn around and come back. There's other things in there, instructions about the inhabitants, you know, honor their religion. We get it. We don't love the Catholics. You're going to be with a bunch of New Englanders who don't like the Catholics. They've been fighting Catholicism for a really long time. They're not allowed to go do, you know, burn churches or break things or anything like that. Treat every one. one with respect. Commander-in-chief things. Like, hey, we want to, like, have these people be friendly to us. So Washington's aware of this. Arnold's aware of it. Arnold's trying to build his force as best he can

in Augusta. I forgot to mention everyone who's, like, anyone in American history is on this trip. Like, Aaron Burr is a private on this trip. James Wilkinson, who is going to, like, we know Benedict Arnold as, like, the greatest traitor in American history, right? Well, Aaron Burr should probably be up there because Aaron Burr was a vice president when he was doing his treason. So Aaron Burr is on there. James Wilkinson, who also is a horrendous traitor in American history, was in the pay of the Spanish as the general of the army between the Revolution and the War of 1812, is on this expedition. Daniel Morgan is on this expedition. Henry Dearborn, future secretary of war during the war of 1812. This is like the who's who of American military history and also racked.

Ap scallian degree on this expedition. It's almost like Guadalcanal, isn't it? I mean, it's the beginning of this enormous campaign, you know, this enormous war, and this will have been the campaign that really cut people's teeth on the whole thing. This March will take about six to eight weeks. By late October, the weather has become extraordinary, right? It's worse than they imagined. It's dark.

It's stormy. I mean, these are gusty, gusty winds. Yeah, so their first leg is going up to Kadaback, and that's got its own problems, but at least you're on water. The biggest issue is the second leg when you have to begin your first portage to go over the height of land. This is a massive logistical problem.

These boats weigh 400 pounds. And they're greenwood. So they're soaked with water. Like they just suck the water into them. So they're even heavier. The water that gets into the boats gets into the dried peas, gets into the flour.

And so you're losing provisions. Arnold eventually breaks up his group into three sections. He sort of has an advance guard to move ahead, scout out the trail. They're worried about Wabanaki Indian ambushes, which never really materialize. They are concerned about sort of enemy contact. And then he's got his sort of middle group, and then he's got his rear guard, which has most of the provisions. And about halfway into this

thing with, as you say, the weather is awful. There's basically a nor'easter or a small hurricane as some historians look at the weather patterns, which is very, really, really weird for October, like really late, comes in just as the advance parties on what's called the Dead River, not because, you know, you all die when you get on there. It's just, it's referring to how slow it goes. But with this, the advance guards on the Dead River, the main body, and the rear guard are still doing their portage. It's awful. It's pouring rain. It is miserable. Provisions are running, like, they're already down on half rations. And this is when the rear guard, which is composed of the majority of troops with most of the provisions under Lieutenant Colonel William

Enos from Vermont decides to hold a little council of war about what they should do, because everyone remembers those orders that Washington gave, hey, if the weather gets bad, you got to call it. So Arnold's pressing ahead, pressing head. He's going back and forth, by the way, between all of these groups, so he's got to be exhausted. And he's going, hey, no, keep your spirits up. We're going to keep going, we're going to keep going. But his rearguard does eventually vote when he's not there, that, hey, you know, discretion is the better part of valor. We out. And they split the rations with the main body. They actually take the majority of them. And they piece out. Back to Cambridge. How many? You're looking at about 700. Oh, my God. Half the force. So half the force.

So before Arnold even gets close to Quebec, he's already down by half strength. He must see this as mutiny, right? I mean, this is... He's livid. He's absolutely livid. He's seeking court marshal for them when he, you know, fast forward a while, because, you know, it's going to be a hot minute before Arnold gets a chance to ever, like, go back to Cambridge and sort this out. Nothing ever comes of these guys. Arnold requests a court martial. Too much time has passed. Washington's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got other stuff going on. Like, you know, we can't spare these guys. So there are no repercussions for Enos and those other officers who opt out. It's November, 1775, when about 675 survivors, half of that original force, as we say,

stumble into Sardagun, a French-Canadian village. They are ragged. They are half-starved. I mean, what they've been through, we could have made a whole episode. It was extraordinary. Death, fighting hurricane floods. These guys just look like rag-tag soldiers who stumbled in from the forest. Local Canadians have to sort of rescue them, right?

Feed and clothe them. Yeah, going through the last swamps, as they head down towards the Chaudier River, this is when they realize, oh, gosh, we wish we hadn't left the boats behind because boats would have been great. But there's no way that they would have been able to bring the boats. We're way too heavy. These guys are eating their shoes. They're eating anything leather. They're eating candles. They kill Henry Dearborn's dog and eat it. There are soldiers dying of exposure right and left. There's frosts in the swamps. There's a Pennsylvania rifleman who dies. His wife is a accompanying them, picks up his kit and walks off to go invade Quebec with Arnold. We're talking about some incredibly horrific privations that these soldiers and their accompanying spouses are enduring. It's absolutely insane. So yeah, when they're coming out, they're absolutely starving. Arnold has enough of his messages gotten ahead to say that, hey, we're coming, we're not invading. Please help. There is food as these guys start straggling out of the swaps. Unfortunately, what's also happened is that some of his letters that have gone ahead have also been captured by the British.

So Guy Carlton, the Royal Governor of Canada, is aware that they're coming. Fortunately, for Arnold, Carlton has other problems on his hand, which is called Richard Montgomery is finally broken the siege of Saint-Jean, has taken Montreal and is poised to look to be advancing on Quebec City. So Carlton is fleeing backwards towards Quebec City to try to put it in a state of repair and fortification as Arnold's guys are just sort of coming out of these frozen swamps and they are not by any means combat ready at all. Yeah. So there we are. I think we have to note, this speaks well of Arnold that these guys who stuck with him, half the force, still believe in this mission, that they still follow this man. I mean, that's the honor that he carries, isn't it? And

in force of personality, too. I mean, when American soldiers don't want to do something, There's tons of examples in history to show that they just won't, you know, that American individual spirit of just like, nope, not going to do it. The force of Arnold's personality really can't, we can't emphasize it enough. He manages to, within less than a month of coming out of the swamps, feed, almost clothed his soldiers, get them up to the St. Lawrence, get them within sight of Quebec City. And but for some doggone scaling ladders around the Quebec's wall. In early December of 1775, Quebec City probably would have been taken. We're in the midst of what is essentially a pincer action. You know, we've got the guys coming up from the south, Richard Montgomery's forces.

And this is key because of the timing involved, that, as you say, they're holding off from attacking Quebec, waiting for this arrival to happen. So when we come back after this next break, let's attack Canada. It is time for our mission to take place. My Lord, it's amazing they even remembered what they were doing after all they came through. Leadership question, Jonathan. You're a military man. How in the world do you keep focus on a mission of this sort?

Boy, that's a good question. Arnold is noted for having been a person of immense character and personality. Like, you could feel people talked about when you spoke to him, you could sort of feel his eyes boring into you. Arnold also shared all the privations of his soldiers. That is probably the best. way, leading by example, is the best way to reinforce discipline in an army that has no discipline because it's not trained. Remember, these were all civilians or militia members until, you know, May of 1775, and we're in November. So we're, no one's had any type of basic training. There is no

underlying training regimen. It's literally, we are following you because of loyalty. We're following you because of duty, or this idea that we have a cause. For all the varying reasons, we finally get this united force of Montgomery and Arnold showing up outside the walls of Quebec City in December 1775. Arnold, had he had scaling ladders on hand to actually attack those walls, he had a very good chance of getting into the city walls, but there was no way for his force to get in, so he has to wait for Montgomery to show up with artillery. Okay, so let's talk about the objective. How difficult a city is this to attack? Today, it still is the only walled city left in North America. If you ever go up there, you look at the walls, you go, oh my God, what on earth were they thinking?

Yeah, it's a formidable objective, but when Arnold arrives, it is not fully manned. So Sir Guy Carlton is the royal governor of Canada, and he realizes very quickly, like, yes, Quebec City, heavy fortifications, tons of artillery, we don't have enough people here. He has a very small garrison of only like 250 regular troops. Vast majority are all down in Boston. What he does is he basically brings in a bunch of sailors, arms them, brings in a bunch of city loyalists, arms them, to try to get a force to be able to man the walls, to man the guns, and to put up a stout defense. He's worried about people inside the city who might be sort of, you know,

not to be an acronistic, like fifth columnist, might be siding with the Patriots. So he's got a lot of things on his mind. And it's definitely never a given that he's going to have enough troops. He's really waiting. His objective is to hold on until the spring when reinforcements can arrive and when the mouth of the river thaws, essentially. Carlton's a formidable guy. Always impresses me with his stories.

Just picture this place, as Jonathan is explaining. Quebec sits at the top. It's right on the river. It sits at the top of a hill with really steep walls. There's just got two parts of this place. There's the upper town, which is behind those walls. And then there's a lower town, which has smaller defenses, but has the river right there. So, you know, it's like a moat.

And so there's a very, very difficult path to getting into this thing, which is really why he has to wait for Montgomery's arrival, which gives, of course, the British time to do, as you say, get ready for this whole thing. There's about a thousand men inside of the city to defend, including Scottish Highlanders. That just sounds bad for everybody. When Montgomery comes, we're in the later part of December. So they've been actually camped over the other side of the river for all this time. The British are watching them from above. I mean, it's a terrible idea. I can't believe that somebody didn't say, you know what, let's hold off on this until spring.

You know, it's just for our own survival. Well, everyone knows that spring is the time when we're going to see an actual response from Parliament. because we haven't really seen a significant response. They send reinforcements in the summer of 1775, but really everyone knows that 1776 is going to be the big response. You know, Parliament is not going to be happy, and they're going to send, as they do, between 20 to 30,000 troops, you know, a massive expedition.

They know they're probably going to come in via Halifax or Quebec because they're open ports. So if they can seize Quebec now, they seal off this northern approach. They realize, man, if we can take Quebec City, what a great spot this will be. We control the St. Lawrence. We won't let the British in. And we'll basically, we'll basically be able to have a small force here to hold a British off while we mass against the British in New York or Massachusetts or wherever they show up. So this is their sort of last chance. And they all realize that. They launch on New Year's Eve, December 31st, in a snowstorm intentionally as cover for attack. Take us through the battle. So the rationale behind this is twofold. One. everyone's enlistments run out on January 1st. This is one of those planning factors of like, hey, make sure you know when everyone's enlistments are good through.

You've got the enlistment problem. You have the problem that the Continentals don't have enough artillery to basically breach the walls. Really, if you're going to do an operation of this type, they don't have enough artillery to breach the walls. They don't have enough troops for a siege. So what does that leave you with? That means you have to attack. You have to have an assault of some kind. And what they're looking for is they're looking for some.

bad weather to do it in. They want to have obscuration from a snowstorm. There's a couple fall starts in the days prior of, hey, we're going to go, we're going to go. You know, it's like D-Day kind of feeling, hey, we're going tonight. We're going to know, no jump tonight, that type of thing. And now it's like, oh, no, no invasion tonight. On New Year's Eve, they get the weather that they need and they execute an attack, which is, it's another pincher movement. They leave a very small force at their camps with some light artillery pieces to demonstrate in front of the city walls to fix the British attention there, while two other forces try to maneuver around the city. So Montgomery has the larger force, around 6 to 700 troops, he sweeps south around Cap diomont

to try to seize one of the main city gates to sweep into the upper town. Meanwhile, Arnold, with a slightly smaller force, he's going to attack the northern gate of the southern town. and then work his way into the southern town to then attack through the city itself into the upper town and seize the fortifications from there. So it's this double envelopment. Double envelopments are tough. They're really tricky to keep synchronized. The soldiers all have green sprigs or pieces of paper in their hats to try to help distinguish them from friend to foe, especially in a snowstorm.

Everything's going super well. Arnold crosses the walls. they're going in the lower town. Montgomery's leading his force in. They find what they believe is an open passageway into the city. And then probably one of the worst timed blasts of grape shot in American history kills Montgomery and the sort of leading attack party. You know, maybe if you're if you're leading an assault, maybe don't post yourself right in the in the front. But, you know, leading by example. And Montgomery's dead. And his second in command is dead.

And the third in command goes, I'm scared. And I don't think we should do this anymore. And pulls the entire assaulting column back. So much for the pincer action. So much for the, exactly. So there's no. Now it's literally everyone's, all the focus is now. The attention is on Arnold and his force.

And he gets wounded in the leg. He is shot. This is one of several injuries he will undergo in this war. He's shot in the leg. He passes. his command to Daniel Morgan, who was a very capable commander, big name, as you've mentioned already. But of course, the whole strategy has fallen apart at this point. Yeah, everything's sort of broken down. Carlton had been panicking a little bit because he realized that he was about to be attacked on both

sides, didn't have enough troops. And all of a sudden, with one attacking column gone, he can now focus entirely on Arnold. Arnold shot in the leg as the same leg that he will continue to be shot in throughout the war. He is withdrawn from the city. Morgan is fighting essentially house to house and realizes after several hours that, one, they're out of ammunition. They have a lot of wet powder. Can't really fight back. Two, they are surrounded on pretty much all sides. And so Morgan will surrender. And this whole attacking column essentially, the survivors either surrender or find their way out of the city. Which leaves us where, which leaves us with Arnold, with a gunshot, you know, Arnold is now in command of the entire expedition.

What's left of it, he's got a gunshot wound in the leg. It's winter. And there's a whole bunch of uncertainty about who's actually in the army with all the enlistments and everything like that. So he's trying to convince people to, hey, re-up, sign up back up again. Please trust me. I know you just went through this really horrific ordeal. Please trust me, we're going to get through this. And then also, you know, sending back word back through, you know, continental controlled Montreal back down to Washington. You know, so this is a, these are letters that I go to Montreal to Ticonderoga to Cambridge. It's going to take a hot second.

Hey, boss, here's what's going on. Not optimal. Please send help. We need more troops. I mean, the statistics are the Patriots, you know, under Morgan, 400 were captured. It was a lot of prisoners of war. 50 are dead, 40, wounded. The defenders, they lost only 20 to 50 casualties.

It was really a very light effect on them. This would be the closest America ever came to controlling Canada, isn't it? It is. It is. Not for lack of trying. Immediately following Saratoga, Congress is like, okay, so, Canada? And actually Washington sends Lafayette up there to sort of look around and be like, hey, what do you think? Lafayette's like,

dude, it's the winter again. Did we not learn about this? No, we're not doing it. There are, of course, more of 1812 begins with a three-pronged assault against Canada. Every single one fails. The last sort of major attempt

to acquire Canada actually happened by the U.S. government, officially, happens post-Civil war with the CSS Alabama claims, the Confederate Commerce raider that had been built in Britain. The U.S. sues Great Britain for the loss of the tonnage caused by that commerce raider and says, hey, you can give us this many million dollars or we'll take Canada. And Great Britain's

like, yeah, no, here's a few million to get you to stop talking. But yeah, this is the closest. And in the revisionist version of Arnold's story, which I don't subscribe to, but it's an interesting counterfactual, had he been more substantially supported in his mission, had they gone in with those ladders, for one thing, you know, let alone more men and better boats, that was a pretty good idea. I mean, you mentioned it just a while ago. Had they controlled Quebec, my goodness, there was a lot of goodness that could come from that. How does this event resonate through to, let's say, Saratoga? I mean, the whole Canadian factor in the Northern campaign. It's kind of fascinating because the situation outside Quebec that you think couldn't get any worse gets worse. Yes,

Arnold gets a bunch of reinforcements. He also gets a bunch of new commanding general officers that Washington ships up there. And he also gets a lot of smallpox. So smallpox hits as they're sort of in these miserable camps outside Quebec City through the winter 1775 to 1776. Smallpox is the chief killer of the Northern Army of the Continental Army. You have the Northern Army, the main army, and the Southern Army. The Northern Army is absolutely decimated by Smallpox. It's going to kill one of their commanders.

who sort of didn't believe that it was that bad, and then he gets there and realizes, hmm, it is this bad. And then just one smallpox is destroying the combat power, the British show up in the spring of 1776. Lottery Enforcement, Carlton and this guy, John Burgoyne, who will feature heavily in the Northern Theater, push out from Quebec City.

There's a few brief battles that do not go well, but a few future big names of the Continental Army do pretty well in them, one of them being Anthony Wayne, who is able to get his force off the field in good order, and that's called doing well in the Canadian campaign. By June of 1776, I mean, this thing is done. Arnold's writing back to his superior saying, hey, it's over, prepare river transports, prepare defenses, we need a fleet and Lake Champlain to contend. He's already thinking a few steps ahead. We have to contend and contest the lake because they're going to be invading down it. there's too strong. Continental leaders, Arnold, Wayne, Sullivan, others are sort of by force of

personality holding this tiny force, only about like 800 troops at the end, together as they pull out of Canada. There's this sort of legend, James Wilkinson talks about it in his diary, but James Wilkinson also lied about nearly everything in his career that says that Arnold was the last person to leave the shores of Canada, actually shoots his horse prior to getting on board the boat in order that the British cannot have that. They sort of burn everything in their retreat. Go back down the lake. Now Arnold and Philip Schuyler, the overall continental commander of the Northern Theater,

have to build this army from scratch again to contest the British attempt down the lake. In some ways, this failed invasion of Canada is on par a bit with Washington's retreat from New York, these kind of moments in this beginning of the war when we just get away with just enough to keep going. In that way, the Americans were, you can say, they were blessed in a way. Arnold, as you say, eventually sets up for the Battle of Valker Island, fall of 1776. All of this is extraordinarily important to set up for what comes later, which is the whole war shifting down to sort of the Mid-Atlantic region. Major Jonathan Bratton of the Maine National Guard, I salute you, sir.

How can people find out more about this tale? So to learn more about the invasion of Canada and the American Revolution in general, You can go to history. comy. Which is the Army Center and Military History website with a whole section on the American Revolution,

including all of our publications. We have a recently released Canadian campaign examination of the Canadian campaign. It's only about 80 pages long. It's a great summary by a fantastic historian. You can check out the other works that are in there.

Shout out to opening shots that I got lucky to be a co-author on. So a whole bunch of resources there for you. Thank you so much for telling us this story. We will doubtlessly have you back again soon. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit.

As you've made it this far, why not like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts? American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit.