1,82 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 432
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Ähnliche
ARNOLD’S EXPEDITION TO QUEBEC
John Codman
KYPROS PRESS
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2016 by John Codman
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I: THE INVASION OF CANADA IS PLANNED
CHAPTER II: BENEDICT ARNOLD
CHAPTER III: THE EXPEDITION SETS FORTH
CHAPTER IV: THE ASCENT OF THE KENNEBEC
CHAPTER V: THE MARCH INTO THE WILDERNESS
CHAPTER VI: FLOOD-FAMINE-DESERTION
CHAPTER VII: ACROSS THE “TERRIBLE CARRY”
CHAPTER VIII: ARNOLD SAVES THE REMNANT OF HIS ARMY
CHAPTER IX: DESCENDING THE CHAUDIÈRE
CHAPTER X: BEFORE QUEBEC
CHAPTER XI: MONTGOMERY JOINS ARNOLD
CHAPTER XII: THE INVESTMENT
CHAPTER XIII: THE ASSAULT IS PLANNED
CHAPTER XIV: THE ASSAULT ON QUEBEC
CHAPTER XV: THE DEATH OF MONTGOMERY
CHAPTER XVI: THE AMERICANS STAND THEIR GROUND
CHAPTER XVII: PRISONERS OF WAR
CHAPTER XVIII: A HOPELESS SIEGE
CHAPTER XIX: THE CAMPAIGN FAILS
ARNOLD’S EXPEDITION TO QUEBEC
INTRODUCTION
THERE ARE SEVERAL REASONS WHY the Quebec expedition has never been given the place in history which it deserves. The rank and file who returned to tell the tale were few in number, weak in influence and widely scattered. Many of them reenlisted and perished during the war. Most of the surviving officers gained a wider reputation by brilliant exploits in more conspicuous fields, and continued to live the active lives which make history but afford little time to write it. Moreover, this was one of the first military movements of importance in the war, and records at that time were not preserved with much care, so that a great deal of valuable information has only recently become accessible, while perhaps still more has been destroyed or lost forever. The young nation was not likely to dwell with pride on the failure of the invasion of Canada, and gladly allowed everything connected with it to fall into oblivion. Doubtless, also, a campaign which was so closely associated with the name of the traitor Arnold, the truthful account of which could not fail to reflect credit on that evil genius, was willingly slighted.
The author had one advantage over other writers who have touched on this campaign, in that he followed, on foot or in canoes, for the greater part of the distance, the army’s course through the Kennebec, Dead River and Chaudière regions, and visited Quebec and its environs; and in like manner traced the route of Montgomery, with whose force Arnold was cooperating, over Lake George, Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River to Montreal. In examining the illustrations made from the author’s photographs, it is desirable to remember that at the time when they were taken, in October, 1895, or September, 1896, the water in the Dead River and the Chaudière was very low. Many of the falls have also been rendered much less difficult of approach and passage by the blastings of the lumbermen, in order to make a freer passage for their logs, for the greater part of the country has been logged over, and most of the big timber cut out.
The list of Journals to be found in the Appendix indicates the chief sources from which the history of the expedition has been drawn. The most valuable American journals in the list are those of Henry, Arnold, Senter and Thayer; of the English, those of Fraser, Ainslie, and the journal by an unknown author, printed in 1880 by the New York Historical Society; the best French journals are those of Sanguinet and Badeaux. Thayer’s Journal, edited by E. M. Stone, was published many years ago in the Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society. Mr. Stone introduces it with a brief history of the invasion of Canada, and adds an appendix which contains valuable notes on the journal and biographical sketches of some of the principal officers of Arnold’s and Montgomery’s forces.
Most of these journals are brief and in the form of diaries. No one of them gives a comprehensive view of the campaign, or of the movements and adventures of more than one division of the expeditionary force from the date of leaving Cambridge to the arrival before Quebec. Some of them are little more than fragments of personal history which have drifted about, privately printed or in manuscript, for one hundred years or more, and have rarely come into public or private notice.
The author’s effort has been by comparison and combination of such original sources to reconcile or correct the conflicting statements of English, Canadian and American historians, and to produce a narrative of popular interest, which shall aim as well at accuracy and impartiality of statement and deduction. This method of work has proved the essential veracity of these diarists and journalists, and at the same time the superficial, careless and unfair treatment which the history of this expedition has received at the hands of many historians. The author has quoted freely from both diaries and journals - not besitating, where their language seemed peculiarly graphic and strong, to embody an occasional phrase in the text without quotation marks, in order not to lose any of the force of the words by reconstruction, or tax the reader’s patience by constant changes from direct to indirect discourse, or rude transitions from one tense to another.
Other valuable material has been found among Force’s Archives, the Canadian Archives, including the Haldimand Papers, the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Archives, and in the collection of Manuscripts of Jared Sparks in the Harvard University Library. There, and in the collections of the Maine Historical Society, and Washington’s writings and correspondence, may be found almost all the letters of Arnold, Montgomery, Washington, Reed and Schuyler, from which quotations have been made.
The author’s thanks are due to Messrs. Christian C. Febiger of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; H. Meigs Whaples of Hartford, Connecticut; Parker M. Reed of Bath, Maine; George A. Porterfield of Charlestown, West Virginia; Edward A. Greene of Providence and James G. Topham of Newport, Rhode Island, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of officers of the expedition, for the readiness with which they have put themselves at his service, and the access they have accorded to manuscripts or portraits in their possession.
CHAPTER I: THE INVASION OF CANADA IS PLANNED
WHEN BENEDICT ARNOLD, TURNED TRAITOR in the last years of the War of Independence, was leading the forces of the King against his former compatriots in Virginia, it is reported that among his prisoners was a certain plucky and witty officer, who, in answer to Arnold’s question, “What will the Americans do with me if they catch me?” replied, “They will cut off the leg which was wounded when you were fightIng so gloriously for the cause of liberty, and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the rest of your body on a gibbet!”
The answer gave fit expression to the detestation with which all steadfast patriots regarded the man who had done his best to betray their cause, but it also hints at the earlier fame which Arnold once deserved and enjoyed. The Arnold of Ticonderoga and Quebec, whose name was a synonym for bravery, determination and patriotic fervor, is not often remembered now. His good deeds are forever obscured by the shadow of his great crime. But it will help us to do full justice to that strange and unfortunate man, if we follow again the story of the gallant but ill-fated expedition which he led through the wilderness of Maine and Canada, and against the icy ramparts of impregnable Quebec. And while we do so let us not forget that had he fallen as did Montgomery before the citadel, his whole body, and not his shattered leg only, would have been entitled to burial with the most glorious honors of war. He would have been counted one of the noblest martyrs of the cause of liberty, not its despised and execrated Judas.
The invasion of Canada was one of the very earliest strategic moves in the war of the Revolution. From the inception of the struggle with the mother country, the colonists appreciated to the full the military and political advantages to be gained by enlisting theCanadians in its support. These advantages, indeed, were so numerous and so obvious that it required neither breadth of statesmanship nor experience in military affairs to recognize them at once. The acquisition of Canada would unite the whole of British America in opposition to the Crown, and strengthen the United Colonies by the possession of a wide stretch of territory, in which were situated two of the principal cities of the continent, one of them a natural fortress of great strategic importance, supplied with all those munitions of war of which the rebels stood in the sorest need. An unbroken front would thus be presented to invasion from England, and New England and New York would not be exposed to the menace of an army allied with the savage Indian tribes, operating in their rear - with Canada as a base, and outflanking them on Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the Hudson River.
The first resort of the rebellious colonies was, of course, to negotiation, and their earliest efforts in this direction met with sufficient encouragement to afford them good hopes for the ultimate attachment of Canada to the confederation by peaceful means alone. Before the capture of Ticonderoga, before the battle of Bunker Hill, even before the battle of Lexington, Canada had been invited to send delegates to the Provincial Congress. The reply of some of the principal merchants of Montreal, to whom the invitation was directed, shows that there was at this time considerable popular sympathy in that province with the cause of liberty, albeit it was a sympathy which prudently hesitated to declare itself in public. Under date of April 28, 1775, they wrote:
We deeply feel the Sorrows and Afflictions of our suffering Brothers; & sincerely wish it was in our Power to afford you effectual Relief; but alas we are more the Objects of pity and Compassion, than yourselves, who are now suffering under the heavy hand of Power; deprived, as we are, of the common right of the miserable, to complain.
You have Numbers, Strength, & a common Cause to Support you in your Opposition: we are still more divided here, by our Interests, than by our Religion, Language and Manners. The Apprehension of Evils to come upon us, in a short time, from the unlimited power of the Governour, strikes all Opposition dead: indeed, few in this Colony dare vent their Griefs: but groan in Silence, & dream of Lettres de Cachet, Confiscations, and Imprisonments, offering up their fervent Prayers to the Throne of Grace, to prosper your righteous cause, which alone will free us from these jealous Fears and Apprehensions that rob us of our Peace. . . .
You will please to bear in Mind, that not only those who hold the Helm of Government, but also, all those who make Wealth or Ambition the chief Objects of their Pursuit are professedly your Enemies; & would be glad to reduce you to the same Abject State, with themselves: nevertheless, the bulk of the People, both English and Canadians, are of quite contrary Sentiments; and wish well to your Cause; but dare not stir a finger to help you; being of no more estimation in the political Machine, than the Sailors are, in shaping the Course, or working the ships in which they sail. They may mutter and swear, but must obey; however, should Government handle them too roughly, & arbitrarily attempt to force them upon dangerous & disagreeable Service, to which they have already shown an irreconcileable Aversion, they may, perhaps, dearly repent it.
Somewhat later, the Whigs of Montreal did, in fact, gather enough courage to send James Price, one of the signers of this letter, to represent them in the Continental Congress, though in a secret and unauthoritative capacity. Price, with Thomas Walker and James Livingston, all wealthy and influential citizens of Montreal, were as zealous for the cause of the colonies, and as open and arrant rebels as Samuel Adams or Patrick Henry. The Quebec Act had been hardly better received in Canada than the Stamp Act in the southern colonies, and there were Committees of Correspondence and Safety in Montreal, and trustworthy private correspondents at Quebec. That very spring, on the first of May, people had insulted his Majesty by daubing his bust in the public square of Montreal with black paint and hanging a string of rotten potatoes round the neck above this inscription: “Voila le Pape du Canada et le sot Anglais.” Indeed, it is not improbable that but for the impolitic document addressed by Congress to the people of Great Britain, in September, 1774, inveighing in unmeasured terms against the French Jurisprudence and Roman Catholicism, Canada might also have cast her vote for independence.
The ancient French noblesse were, for the most part, office-holders under government and devoted to Its interests, but they had dwindled in numbers, means and influence, and were neither to be courted nor feared.
The habitants, or French farmers, who made up the bulk of the population, were certainly not enthusiastic in their loyalty to the English sovereignty under which they had not yet lived a score of years, and though they could hardly be relied upon for active aid, might, at least, have given passive countenance to the plans of the revolutionary leaders if their religion had been treated with respect and their priesthood with tact and wisdom. This phase of the situation was, unfortunately, not correctly understood at Philadelphia until too late. The step already referred to, which alienated many of the Roman Catholic clergy and their flocks from the revolutionary cause, was taken before its probable effect upon this preponderating element of the Canadian population was appreciated.
But though the Continental Congress found much encouragement in the temper of the northern provinces,
as it was reported by its correspondents in Montreal and Quebec, it soon became evident that the active spirits were too few, and the mass of the people too inert, to give any hope for a spontaneous uprising in behalf of the cause of independence. The bolder patriots at once turned to the other alternative, an invasion of Canada by the colonial troops, who, through the aid of the rebel sympathizers and the indifference of the rest of the population, were expected to expel the British troops from Montreal and Quebec, and attach the province to the confideration.
The leading revolutionists correctly understood the urgency of the crisis, for they were perfectly acquainted with the zeal and military talents of General Guy Carleton, the governor of the province. He was exerting himself actively to organize the Canadians, and to supply them with arms and ammunition recently shipped from England, and though the habitants resolutely refused to enroll themselves, it was easily imagined that as soon as the Governor’s authority was reinforced by the arrival of a large body of troops from England, the Canadians would be obliged to yield, and feeling more certain of the issue of the contest, would try to secure immunity for themselves by becoming active in fastening burdens on the backs of their southern neighbors. The blow must be struck at once, then, if it was to be struck at all. The capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point by the New England troops under Ethan Allen opened the way for an expedition to be despatched by way of Lake George and Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence, and Congress in the summer of 1775 authorized such an undertaking. The invading force was to be composed of militia raised in New England and New York, and Major-General Philip Schuyler of the latter colony was appointed to its command. This gentleman was a veteran of the French War and combined with wealth and position, military talents, trustworthiness and unquestioned zeal for the cause. But he was well advanced in years and was perhaps over-cautious for a campaign which so urgently demanded activity and energy.
General Schuyler, having mobilized at Albany, was hurried forward early in July with an army fluctuating from five hundred to fifteen hundred men up Lakes George and Champlain to Ticonderoga. From that fortress as a base he was expected to begin the expulsion of the British from Canada. by taking Chambly on the St. John’s River, and then St. John’s and Montreal. But before he had an opportunity to meet the enemy in force, he was compelled by illness, about September 14, to resign the command to Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery.
Meanwhile General Washington, who had recently taken command of the colonial troops besieging Boston, had communicated to Congress, with his approval, a project for the support of Schuyler’s movement by another expedition, to be sent against Canada, as it were, from the rear. While General Carleton was engaged with an active enemy in his front, this second army was to attempt by rapid marches to surprise and capture Quebec, which would no doubt be but slenderly garrisoned, and if it failed in this, it would at least be able to join forces with the Lake Champlain expedition and give valuable assistance in the reduction of the all-important fortress. Whether General Washington himself first conceived this plan, or whether it was suggested to him by the officer whom he selected to carry it out, does not clearly appear. Perhaps the truth lies between. At all events, Washington warmly pressed the scheme upon the attention of Congress and secured its assent with no apparent difficulty. The expedition thus resolved upon, Washington chose Benedict Arnold as its commander, and Congress promptly voted him a colonel’s commission in the Continental service.
CHAPTER II: BENEDICT ARNOLD
THE YOUNG OFFICER ENTRUSTED WITH this responsible command was born at Norwich, Connecticut, January 14, 1741. He came of good stock, being a great-grandson of Benedict Arnold, the second governor of the colony of Rhode Island. His father, Benedict Arnold, had come to Norwich from Newport, Rhode Island, about 1730, as a seaman aboard the vessel of Captain Absalom King, whose young widow he married in 1733. During Benedict junior’s early youth, his father did a good business with the West Indies, owning parts or the whole of vessels, which he sometimes sailed himself, so that he came to be called “Captain Arnold.” Though his old age seems to have been one of poverty, intemperance and little respect, yet, judging from the positions of trust which he is known to have held, he must for many years have had the confldence of the community in which he lived. His wife died when the young Benedict was seventeen years old, and the Captain himself died three years later. Their son, then, was left an orphan before he reached his majority. Beyond doubt this was a misfortune, for we know that his mother, at least, was his pious counselor and guide.
Arnold had opportunities to receive, it would appear, such education as the best schools of Norwich or its neighborhood afforded - that is to say, a very good one; but judging by the caricatures with which he covered his spelling-book, and what little has come down to us of his youthful habits and inclinations, he was no student, and did not get much farther towards a liberal education in the arts than to write his name in a copy of Cornelius Nepos.
Of his character as a boy, we have only meager and secondary accounts. Rather than repeat, therefore, the stories of his youth and childhood, which are too often colored by prejudice and hatred, it is better to let the reader form his estimate of Arnold’s character and motives chiefly from his authentic writings and undisputed acts. It seems just, however, to record that in letters written to Jared Sparks by citizens of Norwich and New Haven in 1834, when few who knew Arnold as a boy were living, and those at a great age, we find him referred to as “an uncommonly active, prompt, saucy, roguish and impetuous lad,” “showy and ostentatious,” “possessing a mind naturally strong, and certainly singular,” “rash, headstrong and regardless alike of friends and foes.”
As a youngster, Arnold ran away to serve in the French War of 1756, but was promptly returned at the request of his parents. It is said, though the truth of the statement is open to question, that he made a second attempt, and succeeded in passing some dreary months of inactivity in barracks at Ticonderoga. This was so little to his taste that he deserted and returned home, where he was kindly secreted from the King’s officers by his fellow-townsmen. He was then only about sixteen years of age.
Arnold’s mother’s name was Hannah Waterman, and her family was worthy and influential. It was her interest, no doubt, which secured her son’s apprefiticeship to the trade of apothecary with her relatives, Drs. Daniel and Joshua Lothrop, both graduates of Yale College, and the leading importers of drugs in New England. Having served his apprenticeship, he made several voyages to the West Indies as super-cargo of a vessel in which he was interested, and then upon returning from a journey to London, he hung out his sign at New Haven, B. Arnold, druggist, bookseller, etc. From London.
Under the patronage of the Lothrops, Arnold seems to have carried on business successfully. From 1768 to 1773, we find him still living at New Haven, a trader with the West Indies, Martinique, Jamaica, St. Croix and St. Eustache; sometimes sailing his own ships, transporting horses and cattle, as well as merchandise; and we may note, having business connections and correspondents in Montreal and Quebec, which cities he visited personally on more than one occasion. He had experienced business reverses and gone into bankruptcy, from which we are told he did not emerge very creditably, though it does not appear that he made money by the operation, or seriously damaged his reputation. By the time the Revolution broke out he had rallied and was doing a good business. He had repurchased for three hundred pounds the family homestead of Dr. Lothrop, who had bought it from his father for ten pounds, and there is a sworn appraisal of his property at the opening of the Revolution at about twelve thousand dollars.
In 1775 his military ambitions had not left him, and he had become the popular young captain of one of the two companies of “Governor’s Guards,” the crack militia organization of Connecticut. He appears as a man of sensitive pride and temper, full of self-confidence, of force - therefore with enemies - and enjoying respect and local favor in a considerable degree. That he was generous and thoughtful of others is witnessed even by his detractors.
He had married, in New Haven, Miss Margaret Mansfield, the accomplished daughter of Samuel Mansfield, high-sheriff of the county, by whom he had three children; but at this time he was a widower. An only sister, Hannah Arnold, who was devoted to him, was in charge of his household.
He was rather short in stature, thickset and very muscular, and of good figure. He was a decided favorite with women and enjoyed their society. He had dark hair, light eyes, a florid complexion and features which might fairly be called handsome. He was an excellent horseman, no mean sailor, and a splendid shot with either rifle or pistol. His skill with the latter had stood him in good stead on the dueling-ground, and was destined to save his life once, at least, in close quarters on the battlefield.
News of the battle fought at Lexington on the 19th of April reached New Haven by midday of the 20th. Arnold and his company assembled and, joined by some enthusiastic students from Yale College, made a demand on the selectmen for powder, so that they might set off at once for Cambridge. This request being refused for lack of orders from the colonial authorities, Arnold did not hesitate; he forced the selectmen to deliver the keys, opened the powderhouse and marched for Cambridge with a full complement, arriving there with one of the best-drilled, best-equipped and best-uniformed companies which the little army could boast.
Such a leader, so announced, would have been likely to attract attention, even if less self-confident, and Arnold was never a laggard in the path of ambition. On April 30, a few days after his arrival at Cambridge, he wrote to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, urging an expedition to capture Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Montreal. On May 3, so well did he bespeak his cause, we find him receiving a colonel’s commission, and departing for western Massachusetts, there to raise the levies for the undertaking.
The same idea had meanwhile been conceived by Ethan Allen, who was in command of the militia companies of Vermont, and by some of the leading men of Hartford, who had raised a company and hurried it forward to cooperate with Colonel Allen, already on the march. On arriving at Stockbridge, therefore, Arnold found himself forestalled, and without waiting to recruit the levies he was authorized to raise, he hurried forward in order that he might not himself miss the stirring events which were at hand.
Perhaps he relied on his regular commission from Massachusetts to supersede the zealous Vermonter in his command. But Allen proved to be a man too much after his own temper; it was a case of “Greek meeting Greek.” Arnold could not take the fortress with the magic of his commission; Allen could take it with his men. As a courtesy, however, Allen accepted Arnold as a volunteer, the latter retaining his rank, and together, May 10, at the head of only eighty-three men, they surprised and captured the fortress at Ticonderoga, its small garrison of forty-eight men and its rich stores of munitions of war, so much needed for the siege of Boston. Crown Point fell in short order, an equally easy prey.
Canada was regarded as the “back door” which would always be open for the King’s troops. Thus was its key placed in the hands of Congress, and the entrance to the western waterways, scenes of former warfare with the French, safely closed. Naturally the names of those who were foremost in carrying out the enterprise became at once famous throughout the colonies.
But though they had buried their differences so amicably in the face of the dangerous exploit in which they were mutually engaged, Allen and Arnold soon found numerous occasions for friction and dissension. Conspicuous among these was the affair of St. John’s.
Arnold had been joined a few days after the capture of Ticonderoga by about fifty men raised by his lieutenants, Oswald and Brown, in the Berkshires. They brought with them the schooner Liberty, taken from Philip Skene, a government officer at Skenesborough, at the head of Lake Champlain. Availing himself of this vessel, and having fixed upon her four carriage and six swivel guns, Arnold stole a march upon Allen, with whom he still contested the chief command, and moved rapidly up the lake to Crown Point and St. John’s, where he captured twenty men and made prize of a King’s sloop and some military stores. Returning, he had the satisfaction of meeting Allen setting out with one hundred men in bateaux to accomplish the same object.
Upon another occasion, a number of the Connecticut officers called upon Arnold at Crown Point, to protest against his pretensions to command them. The interview was stormy, and before it was ended Colonel Easton, as Arnold thought, insulted him. In Arnold’s regimental memorandum book there is this brief entry, acquainting us with the subsequent proceedings:
“I took the liberty of breaking his (Easton’s) head and on his refusing to draw like a gentleman, he having a hanger by his side, and a case of loaded pistols in his pocket, I kicked him very heartily and ordered him from the point immediately.”
Such dissensions of course gave rise to scandal, and a committee from the Massachusetts Legislature having been sent to enquire into Arnold’s conduct while under its commission, that high-spirited officer Promptly resigned from the service of Massachusetts and returned to Cambridge in July.
General Washington had just arrived from Virginia to take the command, on July 2, of the heterogeneous bands of militia collected around Boston, and Arnold, on his return from theLakes, met him for the first time. Washington reognized the Young Officer’s merit from the outset. Always fair-minded and hampered by no local prejudices, he became at once his admirer and friend.
While at crown Point, Arnold, who seems beyond ail others - unless it may be Ethan Allen - to have understood the value of rapid action at the beginning of such a war, had sent spies into Canada to ascertain the enemy’s strength and the sentiments of the French and Canadians. He also sent a Mr. Hoit, an Indian interpreter, and three Stockbridge Indians with a belt of wampum to conciliate the Caughnawaga Indians above Montreal.
The information thus gathered, together, no doubt, with reports from Arnold’s own friends and business correspondents in Montreal and Quebec, he had forwarded to Congress in June. The substantial interest thus displayed in the projected invasion of Canada, his own familiarity with the region, gained through frequent visits as a trader, and his creditable military services at Ticonderoga and, Crown Point, all united to designate him as the most fit man to lead the second expedition which was now to be equipped.
If he had not actually suggested the plan to General Washington he certainly gave it his enthusiastic approval, and to his other qualifications for its command was added the confidence and appreciafion with which the great Virginian openly regarded him.
The duty to which Arnold was assigned was one of great responsibility, for many patriots, including even Washington himself, were inclined to believe that the issue of the struggle with England would turn upon the attempt at the conquest of Canada. Success there seemed certain to bring either peace with a redress of grievances or independence. Much also was risked in the campaign, for the season was already well advanced, and the line of march lay for much of the way through an untrodden wilderness, far removed from any proper base of supplies. But difficulties of this description were not likely to daunt an officer of Arnold’s energy and daring, while the supreme importance of the stake seemed to older and cooler heads than his sufficient excuse for the venture. Moreo er, the failure of this expedition would not mean the failure of the campaign; Schuyler’s army would not as a necessary consequence meet defeat.
There were three principal ways by which an entrance into Canada might be sought, besides the Champlain route, over which Schuyler was advancing. One was by the Connecticut River, the Salmon River and the St. Francis, which would carry the invader to Lake St. Peter, about one hundred miles above Quebec; the second followed the St. John and Madawaska Rivers and passed over the carrying place to Kamouraska on the River St. Lawrence, about one hundred miles below Quebec. This second passage seems to have been regarded as the easier of ascent by the British, and the most likely to be used should an attempt on Quebec be made. The third way was that by the Kennebec and the Chaudière. There does not seem to have been any question in Washington’s mind that this last route was the best for his purposes - indeed, the others seem not to have been seriously considered.
The plan of campaign had nothing novel in it, beyond the route over the inland waters of Maine and Canada and the element of surprise. The campaign of 1756-59 had been directed against the same objective points, and with the identical purpose of dividing the forces of the enemy and reducing the two principal cities of the hostile country. Montgomery was following in the very footsteps of Amherst, while Arnold was called upon to play the part of the immortal Wolfe. In place of Bougainville and Bigot, Vaudreuil and Montcalm to oppose them, there was only Governor Guy Carleton and a few other English and French veterans of inferior rank. Earlier still, the fleet of Phipps and the army of Colonel Schuyler had shown the way for Wolfe and Amherst, and as far back as 1711 Admiral Walker’s ill-fated armada and General Nicholson’s provincials had undertaken to strike the same blows in similar fashion.
But no previous expedition had been obliged to follow a path so dimly traced through almost unexplored wilderness, or to meet the hardships and perils which were in store for Arnold’s devoted band. Theirs was a road much of which only marauding parties of painted savages or occasional wandering trappers and hunters had ever traveled, and so inaccurate was the information at Washington’s command that both the distance and the difficulties of the way were much underestimated.
“From the mouth of the Kennebec River to Quebec, on a straight line,” he wrote to Congress, “is two hundred and ten miles. The river is navigable for sloops about thirty-eight miles, and for flat-bottomed boats about twenty-two miles; then you meet Ticonic Falls, and from Ticonic Falls to Norridgewock, as the river runs, is thirty-one miles, from thence to the first carrying place, about thirty miles; carrying place four miles, then a pond to cross and another carrying place about two miles to another pond; then a carrying place about three or four miles to another pond, then a carrying place to the western branch of the Kennebec River, called the Dead River, then up that river as it runs thirty miles, some small falls and short carrying places intervening; then you come to the Height of Land and about six miles carrying places, into a branch which leads into Ammeguntick pond, the head of Chaudière River, which falls into the St. Lawrence about four miles above Quebec. “
On comparing this description with the maps of to-day, we can correct its most striking inaccuracies; the length of the Dead River was understated, it seems, by fifty miles; and there was no mention whatever of the second or larger chain of lakes, much the more numerous and formidable, to the east of the Height of Land.
Indians on the war-path against the Maine coast settlers used to steal along these watercourses to make their lightning attacks, and there were known to be well-worn trails on many of the portages. As long before as 1689 M. de Portneuf, at the head of fifty French Canadians and sixty Abenakis, had crossed the country from Quebec and descended the Kennebec, destroying the English forts on Casco Bay. On the Kennebec itself, straggling settlements had reached beyond Fort Western (where Augusta now stands), as far as Fort Halifax, at the junction of the Kennebec and Sebasticook. There were even a few settlers as far as Norridgewock. But beyond this place it was not easy to obtain guides. There were few hunters or trappers who knew the river as far as the Twelve-Mile carrying place, now reached from Brigg’s ferry on the eastern side of the river, and beyond that carrying place there was a wilderness of forests, bogs, and mountains.
Though from the St. Lawrence, French settlements had crept feebly up the wild Chaudière nearly as far as the River Du Famine, yet of the topography of the country intervening to the Height of Land, little or no information was obtainable. Nevertheless, of this unknown and undescribed country there were only some eighty or ninety miles, as the crow flies, at the broadest calculation, and according to Washington’s information even less.
The greatest difficulty before the expedition from a military point of view lay in the inadequacy of the Kennebec settlements as a base of supplies in case of unforeseen emergencies. The hamlets, towns only in name, were hardly more than clearings in the forests which still covered the banks of this noble river. The settlement of the region had indeed begun as early as 1639, when John Parker established his trading post and fishing station at the mouth of the river, but pioneers had been slow to follow him, and whenever any considerable number had made homes for themselves in the wilderness, they and their families had met a tragic end in one of the Indian forays which for a century and a half wasted the borders of New England.
By 1775 some progress in the settlement and civilization of the Kennebec valley had indeed been made, since the danger from the savages was now greatly diminished by the final expulsion of the French power from Canada. A fairly good road had been opened as far as Fort Western, and there was a wood road at least to Fort Halifax. Georgetown at the mouth of the river, Woolwich, Pownalborough, Pittston, Vassalborough, and Winslow on the eastern bank, Broad Bay and Gardinerstown on the opposite shore, had made places for themselves in the wilderness and achieved names. But between Georgetown and the Falls of Norridgewock, a hundred miles above, there were probably not over five hundred white people, if so many. Pownalborough, the most pretentious village (the present town of Dresden), numbered fully half of these, and was the shire town of the county of Lincoln. It needs no technical military knowledge to understand that a country so thinly peopled was poorly adapted to furnish a base of supplies even for an armament no larger than Arnold’s.
But, on the other hand, there were features of the situation distinctly favorable to the success of the undertaking. The very difficulty of communication between the Chaudière settlements and the Kennebec towns made it unlikely that news of the expedition would reach Quebec much in advance of the troops themselves, and made a virtual surprise of the citadel possible. The Indians of the Maine forests were by this time pacified, and even well disposed to the colonists’ cause, and they had, moreover, been carefully conciliated by agents sent in advance of the expedition itself. The Indians of the Norridgewock tribe, who had a white chief, Paul Higgins by name, had even gone so far as to march all the way to Cambridge in August, under the command of Reuben Colburn, of Pownalborough, to tender their services to General Washington. No doubt their visit and the information they gave were among the reasons which convinced Washington that the descent upon Canada by way of the Kennebec was feasible. Similar assurances of amity and offers of support had come from the Penobscot tribe, and though little actual use was made of these new-found allies, no pains were spared to maintain friendly relations with them, and, thus to make it possible for the expedition to traverse their country with security and confidence.
Finally the spies and the rebel sympathizers who had placed their information at the service of Washington and Arnold made it clear that the defenses of Quebec had been suffered to fall into comparative decay, while the fortress itself was most inadequately garrisoned. The walls had in places begun to crumble; there were few platforms for the cannon; the ditch was half filled with debris, and there was not a single article in store with which to begin the repair of the fortifications. Though there was plenty of ammunition, and a quantity of provisions could easily be obtained with fair notice, the Governor’s purse was short, and there were many mouths to feed. Carleton himself, with all the troops he dared to withdraw, had gone forward to protect Montreal, and trustworthy spies reported that only fifty regular soldiers were left in Quebec. Moreover, as we learn irom the journals of British officers, then in the city, the garrison could rely on only about one hundred and thirty loyal citizens to support them, most of the population being either stubbornly neutral or frankly in sympathy with the invaders.
It appears, therefore, that in spite of the hazardous nature of the enterprise, it was by no means desperate or hopeless. The question of its success or failure depended upon the energy and determination with which it was prosecuted - and upon the always doubtful fortune of war. Perhaps its sponsors were unduly sanguine of its happy result, but the prize which they coveted was a rich one, and well worth any risk within the bounds of reason. The project failed, and has met much consequent condemnation. Had it succeeded, it would have been beyond question the most brilliant military exploit of the war.
CHAPTER III: THE EXPEDITION SETS FORTH
THE ARMY GATHERED UNDER WASHINGTON’S command at the siege of Boston numbered about eighteen thousand men, and was principally composed of New England volunteers. From this army it was determined to detach something more than a thousand troops for the Quebec expedition - not a large force, yet outnumbering all the British regulars then in Canadian garrisons. General Washington was the better able to spare this detachment, because it was already evident that the British troops shut up in Boston had accepted the situation, and had not the least intention of making any vigorous attempt to raise the siege without reinforcements from England. Under these circumstances the American commander felt that the fewer men kept in the enforced inactivity of an investment the better, both for the morale of the army and the cause for which they were fighting. Had it not appeared that the difficulties of equipping, transporting and supplying a larger force would multiply in a greater ratio than its increased effectiveness, more soldiers could easily have been added to Arnold’s command without impairing the efficiency of the main army.
September 6, 1775, orders were given to draft the men for Quebec from their regiments, while a company of carpenters was sent forward to Colburn’s shipyard, at Agry’s Point, near Pittston, about two miles below Gardiner, on the eastern bank of the Kennebec, where the two hundred bateaux which the expedition would require were to be built.
Two days later, the detachment was ordered to rendezvous at Cambridge, where it was encamped on fhe Common until the 13th, collecting provisions and filling up each company of musketeers to eighty-four effective men, rank and file. The whole force, all volunteers, was composed of three companies of riflemen and two battalions of musketeers, and numbered about eleven hundred men. Camp attendants, officers’ servants, guides, and a few men enlisted on the Kennebec must have later swelled this number to nearly twelve hundred.
The rivalry among the many rifle companies in camp at Cambridge, all of which were eager to volunteer for the expedition, was so great that, to avoid jealousy and ill-feeling, the captains were allowed to draw lots. Chance decided in favor of the companies of William Hendricks, Matthew Smith and Daniel Morgan. Thbse riflemen were mountaineers and frontiersmen from Pennsylvania and Virginia, the two companies first named from the former state, and Morgan’s from the Old Doininion. Inured to every hardship, capable of every exertion, thoroughly expert in woodcraft and trained in the sharp school of border Indian warfare, they were, in every respect, valuable recruits for such an enterprise as this. Morgan’s
company had marched the six hundred miles from Winchester, Virginia, to Cambridge, in three weeks, without losing a man from sickness or desertion. The Pennsylvania companies made a record for endurance scarcely less remarkable, marching more than twenty miles a day for twenty-two days.
Brought up amid the alarms and massacres of the French and Indian wars, taught from their youth to regard the red man as their hereditary and inevitable enemy, they had perforce adopted his method of warfare, and fought by stratagem and ambuscade oftener than under the articles of war. On their own frontiers, indeed, they had sometimes gone so far in the imitation of their savage foe as to blacken and paint their bodies and faces, and occasionally used their tomahawks to scalp as well as kill. On the present occasion, however, there was no such relapse into primitive barbarity. Fearing neither “man, Indian, nor devil,” and God only so much as to make them fight the heathen the better, the red coat of a British regular inspired them with more contempt than terror. Braddock’s fatal campaign had taught them that fine uniforms and rigid adherence to army regulations were not enough to make soldiers invincible.
Their marksmanship was the wonder of the camp at Cambridge. Loading and firing on the run, they would often pierce a target only seven inches in diameter at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards - an exploit which seems almost miraculous when the weapons of that day are considered. As soldiers they were ready to maintain the best of discipline. Later in the war, when Morgan organized his famous regiment of riflemen, it became the most dreaded body of men in the Continental service, and was generously declared by Burgoyne, at whose defeat it assisted conspicuously, the finest regiment in the world. But they abhorred the inactivity of camp life and were only too eager to share in the certain perils and possible glories of the Quebec undertaking.
The New England volunteers were divided into two battalions, one commanded by Lieutenant-CoIoneI Roger Enos of Vermont, an officer of American birth, who had, however, the advantage of having seen service in the British army, and Major Return Jonathan Meigs, a tradesman-soldier from Connecticut; while the other was commanded by Lieutenant-CoIoneI Christopher Greene, a son of one of the justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and Major Timothy Bigelow of Massachusetts. The companies composing the first battalion were led by Captains Scott, Samuel McCobb, Thomas Williams, William Goodrich, Oliver Handchett and Henry Dearborn. Those of the second battalion were commanded by Captains Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, Simeon Thayer, John Topham, Jonas Hubbard, and Oliver Colburn. These men, although of less conspicuous physical proportions and martial accomplishments than the riflemen, were still sturdy, active and courageous, hardly yet accustomed to the standard of discipline that must obtain in every effective fighting force, but well fitted to sustain the arduous campaign they had undertaken. Their officers were in some cases from wealthy and aristocratic families, while others were simply honest farmers or tradesmen, who had abandoned their humdrum occupations to take up arms in a cause they felt to be just, and had been chosen to command by neighbors who knew and trusted them. Earnest patriots all, they gave concrete expression to that democratic spirit which was henceforth to animate the young republic they labored to establish.
The detachment, as a whole, was of the very flower of the colonial youth, young men of a spirit not easily to be restrained by their elders, whom parental warnings of the fatigues and perils to be encountered only served to fire with more ardent yearnings for a share in the glory of success. Two hundred and fifty came from Rhode Island, one hundred from Connecticut, four hundred from Massachusetts, including the District of Maine, one hundred from New Hampshire, two hundred from Pennsylvania, one hundred from Virginia, and a few volunteers from New Jersey. Even at that time America was glad to accept the aid of the sons of Erin, and there were in the little army nearly two hundred “emigrants” - fully a sixth of the detachment - from the old country, a large majority of whom were from Ireland.
It was wisely a body of young men. Arnold himself was but thirty-four. Enos, the oldest of the officers, and, as the event was to prove, the least reliable, was forty-five. The other officers were all below forty. Morgan was thirty-eight, a splendid man, standing over six feet in his moccasins and weighing two hundred pounds. His aspect was commanding, his voice stentorian, his strength and endurance invincible. He had first seen service as a teamster in Braddock’s army, and was a battle-scarred veteran of more than one border “war.” On the march he wore leggings and a cloth, in the Indian style; his beard was allowed to grow, and one member of the expedition refers to him as having the appearance history gives to Belisarius. Smith, the hero -or devil - of the massacres at Conestoga and Lancaster jail, of which Parkman tells us in “The Conspiracy of Pontiac,” was somewhat younger; Meigs a trifle older; Greene, Hendricks, Bigelow and the others were younger still.
Most of them had seen service of some sort, in spite of their youth. Captain Thayer had been a member of the famous “Rogers’ Rangers,” and his hairbreadth escape from the massacre of Fort William Henry was terrifying enough to have excused his devoting the remainder of his life to his peaceful occupation as a maker of periwigs. Captain Dearborn, a young man of twenty-four, who had educated himself to be a physician, but was destined to pursue a semi-military, semi-political career, with no little distinction, had received his baptism of fire at Bunker Hill. Christian Febiger, a young Danish emigrant with a imilitary education, had won his spurs in the same battle, and acted as adjutant of the expedition. Besides the regular officers, there were a number of commissioned volunteers, all youths, some almost striplings. Among them were - Aaron Burr,the son of the president of Princeton College, and afterward famous in American history; Matthias Ogden of New Jersey; Eleazer Oswald, who served as Arnold’s private secretary; Charles Porterfield of Virginia; Rev. Samuel Spring of Newburyport, the chaplain, and a few others. The commissariat, which promised to prove a most difficult department to conduct, appears to have been organized by Captain Farnsworth and an assistant, Jeremiah Wheelwright.
On September 13, all preparations being completed, the second battalion left Cambridge on their march for Newburyport, the port of embarkation for the mouth of the Kennebec. That day they reached Malden and there passed the night. At five in the afternoon of the same day the first battalion followed, and quartered that night at the meeting-houses at Mystic and Medford. On the following day both battalions continued their march - the second camping at Beverly, while the first, passing through the towns of Malden and Lynn, encamped at Salem and Danvers. The weather was hot and sultry. At sunset on the 15th the second battalion reached Newburyport, the first following them next morning. The men were quartered, some in the Presbyterian meeting-house, some in two of the ropewalks, some at Davenport’s Inn, while the riflemen spread their tents in a field near Rolfe’s lane. The officers were entertained by Mr. Nathaniel Tracy and Mr. Tristram Dalton. The detachment received an ovation upon its arrival, and the patriotic citizens of old Newbury were lavish in their hospitality.
Meanwhile Arnold remained at Cambridge, doubtless to receive his final orders, until the morning of the 15th, an unlucky Friday. It is highly probable, too, that Washington held him back for the very latest despatches from Schuyler, who wrote Washington on the last day of August that Montgomery was to leave Crown Point that day. Stopping at Salem for dinner, and to arrange for the forwarding of some two hundred pounds of ginger, and two hundred and seventy blankets received from the Committee of Safety, he arrived at Newburyport at ten o’clock the same evening.
